Surface normal vector processing mechanism

ABSTRACT

An apparatus to facilitate processing video bit stream data is disclosed. The apparatus includes one or more processors to encode surface normals data with point cloud geometry data included in the video bit stream data for reconstruction of objects within the video bit stream data based on the surface normals data and a memory communicatively coupled to the one or more processors.

RELATED APPLICATION

This application relates to commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/050,153, entitled REDUCED RENDERING OF SIX-DEGREE OF FREEDOM VIDEO, by Jill Boyce, filed Jul. 31, 2018, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF INVENTION

This invention relates generally to video processing and more particularly to video processing via a graphics processing unit.

BACKGROUND OF THE DESCRIPTION

Six degree of freedom (6DoF) video is an emerging immersive video use case, which provides a viewer an immersive media experience where the viewer controls the viewpoint of a scene. The simpler three degree of freedom (3DoF) video, (e.g. 360 degree or panoramic video) allows a viewer to change orientation around the X, Y, and Z axes, (described as yaw, pitch, and roll), from a fixed position. 6DoF video enables the viewer to change position through translational movements along the X, Y, and Z axes.

6DoF video can be represented using point clouds. However, the rendering of point cloud data is computationally expensive, making it difficult to render point cloud video containing large number of points at high frame rates. Furthermore, point cloud data rates are large, requiring a large capacity for storage or transmission.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

So that the manner in which the above recited features of the present invention can be understood in detail, a more particular description of the invention, briefly summarized above, may be had by reference to embodiments, some of which are illustrated in the appended drawings. It is to be noted, however, that the appended drawings illustrate only typical embodiments of this invention and are therefore not to be considered limiting of its scope, for the invention may admit to other equally effective embodiments.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a processing system, according to an embodiment;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a processor according to an embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a graphics processor, according to an embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a graphics processing engine of a graphics processor in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a graphics processor provided by an additional embodiment;

FIGS. 6A & 6B illustrates thread execution logic including an array of processing elements employed in some embodiments;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating a graphics processor instruction formats according to some embodiments;

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of a graphics processor according to another embodiment;

FIGS. 9A & 9B illustrate a graphics processor command format and command sequence, according to some embodiments;

FIG. 10 illustrates exemplary graphics software architecture for a data processing system according to some embodiments;

FIGS. 11A & 11B is a block diagram illustrating an IP core development system, according to an embodiment;

FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary system on a chip integrated circuit, according to an embodiment;

FIGS. 13A & 13B is a block diagram illustrating an additional exemplary graphics processor;

FIGS. 14A & 14B is a block diagram illustrating an additional exemplary graphics processor of a system on a chip integrated circuit, according to an embodiment;

FIG. 15A illustrates multiple forms of immersive video;

FIG. 15B illustrates image projection and texture planes for immersive video.

FIG. 16 illustrates a client-server system by which immersive video content can be generated and encoded by a server infrastructure for transmission to one or more client devices;

FIGS. 17A-17B illustrate a system for encoding and decoding 3DoF Plus content;

FIGS. 18A-18B illustrate a system for encoding and decoding 6DoF content using textured geometry data;

FIGS. 19A-19B illustrate a system for encoding and decoding 6DoF content via point cloud data;

FIG. 20 illustrates a computing device employing surface normals processing mechanism, according to an embodiment;

FIGS. 21A-21C illustrate a cross section of a captured scene;

FIG. 22A is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of a process for using surface normals in point cloud data;

FIG. 22B is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of a process for rendering point cloud data using surface normals;

FIG. 23A&23B illustrate one embodiment of implementing surface normals to render a point cloud;

FIG. 24A illustrates one embodiment of an encoder;

FIG. 24B illustrates one embodiment of a decoder;

FIG. 25 illustrates one embodiment of a flow for approximating surface normals from a depth map;

FIG. 26 is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of a process for approximating surface normals; and

FIG. 27 is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of a method 2700 for determining light estimations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth to provide a more thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it will be apparent to one of skill in the art that the present invention may be practiced without one or more of these specific details. In other instances, well-known features have not been described in order to avoid obscuring the present invention.

Embodiments provide for a mechanism for explicit coding of surface normals within a point cloud geometry and color to provide enhanced geometric reconstructions and color modeling. Further embodiments provide a mechanism for approximating surface normals from a depth map. In such embodiments, surface normals are extracted for approximations directly from a depth map.

System Overview

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a processing system 100, according to an embodiment. In various embodiments, the system 100 includes one or more processors 102 and one or more graphics processors 108, and may be a single processor desktop system, a multiprocessor workstation system, or a server system having a large number of processors 102 or processor cores 107. In one embodiment, the system 100 is a processing platform incorporated within a system-on-a-chip (SoC) integrated circuit for use in mobile, handheld, or embedded devices.

In one embodiment, the system 100 can include, or be incorporated within a server-based gaming platform, a game console, including a game and media console, a mobile gaming console, a handheld game console, or an online game console. In some embodiments, the system 100 is a mobile phone, smart phone, tablet computing device or mobile Internet device. The processing system 100 can also include, couple with, or be integrated within a wearable device, such as a smart watch wearable device, smart eyewear device, augmented reality device, or virtual reality device. In some embodiments, the processing system 100 is a television or set top box device having one or more processors 102 and a graphical interface generated by one or more graphics processors 108.

In some embodiments, the one or more processors 102 each include one or more processor cores 107 to process instructions which, when executed, perform operations for system and user software. In some embodiments, each of the one or more processor cores 107 is configured to process a specific instruction set 109. In some embodiments, instruction set 109 may facilitate Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC), Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC), or computing via a Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW). Multiple processor cores 107 may each process a different instruction set 109, which may include instructions to facilitate the emulation of other instruction sets. Processor core 107 may also include other processing devices, such a Digital Signal Processor (DSP).

In some embodiments, the processor 102 includes cache memory 104. Depending on the architecture, the processor 102 can have a single internal cache or multiple levels of internal cache. In some embodiments, the cache memory is shared among various components of the processor 102. In some embodiments, the processor 102 also uses an external cache (e.g., a Level-3 (L3) cache or Last Level Cache (LLC)) (not shown), which may be shared among processor cores 107 using known cache coherency techniques. A register file 106 is additionally included in processor 102 which may include different types of registers for storing different types of data (e.g., integer registers, floating point registers, status registers, and an instruction pointer register). Some registers may be general-purpose registers, while other registers may be specific to the design of the processor 102.

In some embodiments, one or more processor(s) 102 are coupled with one or more interface bus(es) 110 to transmit communication signals such as address, data, or control signals between processor 102 and other components in the system 100. The interface bus 110, in one embodiment, can be a processor bus, such as a version of the Direct Media Interface (DMI) bus. However, processor busses are not limited to the DMI bus, and may include one or more Peripheral Component Interconnect buses (e.g., PCI, PCI Express), memory busses, or other types of interface busses. In one embodiment the processor(s) 102 include an integrated memory controller 116 and a platform controller hub 130. The memory controller 116 facilitates communication between a memory device and other components of the system 100, while the platform controller hub (PCH) 130 provides connections to I/O devices via a local I/O bus.

The memory device 120 can be a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) device, a static random access memory (SRAM) device, flash memory device, phase-change memory device, or some other memory device having suitable performance to serve as process memory. In one embodiment the memory device 120 can operate as system memory for the system 100, to store data 122 and instructions 121 for use when the one or more processors 102 executes an application or process. Memory controller 116 also couples with an optional external graphics processor 112, which may communicate with the one or more graphics processors 108 in processors 102 to perform graphics and media operations. In some embodiments a display device 111 can connect to the processor(s) 102. The display device 111 can be one or more of an internal display device, as in a mobile electronic device or a laptop device or an external display device attached via a display interface (e.g., DisplayPort, etc.). In one embodiment the display device 111 can be a head mounted display (HMD) such as a stereoscopic display device for use in virtual reality (VR) applications or augmented reality (AR) applications.

In some embodiments the platform controller hub 130 enables peripherals to connect to memory device 120 and processor 102 via a high-speed I/O bus. The I/O peripherals include, but are not limited to, an audio controller 146, a network controller 134, a firmware interface 128, a wireless transceiver 126, touch sensors 125, a data storage device 124 (e.g., hard disk drive, flash memory, etc.). The data storage device 124 can connect via a storage interface (e.g., SATA) or via a peripheral bus, such as a Peripheral Component Interconnect bus (e.g., PCI, PCI Express). The touch sensors 125 can include touch screen sensors, pressure sensors, or fingerprint sensors. The wireless transceiver 126 can be a Wi-Fi transceiver, a Bluetooth transceiver, or a mobile network transceiver such as a 3G, 4G, or Long Term Evolution (LTE) transceiver. The firmware interface 128 enables communication with system firmware, and can be, for example, a unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI). The network controller 134 can enable a network connection to a wired network. In some embodiments, a high-performance network controller (not shown) couples with the interface bus 110. The audio controller 146, in one embodiment, is a multi-channel high definition audio controller. In one embodiment the system 100 includes an optional legacy I/O controller 140 for coupling legacy (e.g., Personal System 2 (PS/2)) devices to the system. The platform controller hub 130 can also connect to one or more Universal Serial Bus (USB) controllers 142 connect input devices, such as keyboard and mouse 143 combinations, a camera 144, or other USB input devices.

It will be appreciated that the system 100 shown is exemplary and not limiting, as other types of data processing systems that are differently configured may also be used. For example, an instance of the memory controller 116 and platform controller hub 130 may be integrated into a discreet external graphics processor, such as the external graphics processor 112. In one embodiment the platform controller hub 130 and/or memory controller 160 may be external to the one or more processor(s) 102. For example, the system 100 can include an external memory controller 116 and platform controller hub 130, which may be configured as a memory controller hub and peripheral controller hub within a system chipset that is in communication with the processor(s) 102.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a processor 200 having one or more processor cores 202A-202N, an integrated memory controller 214, and an integrated graphics processor 208. Those elements of FIG. 2 having the same reference numbers (or names) as the elements of any other figure herein can operate or function in any manner similar to that described elsewhere herein, but are not limited to such. Processor 200 can include additional cores up to and including additional core 202N represented by the dashed lined boxes. Each of processor cores 202A-202N includes one or more internal cache units 204A-204N. In some embodiments each processor core also has access to one or more shared cached units 206.

The internal cache units 204A-204N and shared cache units 206 represent a cache memory hierarchy within the processor 200. The cache memory hierarchy may include at least one level of instruction and data cache within each processor core and one or more levels of shared mid-level cache, such as a Level 2 (L2), Level 3 (L3), Level 4 (L4), or other levels of cache, where the highest level of cache before external memory is classified as the LLC. In some embodiments, cache coherency logic maintains coherency between the various cache units 206 and 204A-204N.

In some embodiments, processor 200 may also include a set of one or more bus controller units 216 and a system agent core 210. The one or more bus controller units 216 manage a set of peripheral buses, such as one or more PCI or PCI express busses. System agent core 210 provides management functionality for the various processor components. In some embodiments, system agent core 210 includes one or more integrated memory controllers 214 to manage access to various external memory devices (not shown).

In some embodiments, one or more of the processor cores 202A-202N include support for simultaneous multi-threading. In such embodiment, the system agent core 210 includes components for coordinating and operating cores 202A-202N during multi-threaded processing. System agent core 210 may additionally include a power control unit (PCU), which includes logic and components to regulate the power state of processor cores 202A-202N and graphics processor 208.

In some embodiments, processor 200 additionally includes graphics processor 208 to execute graphics processing operations. In some embodiments, the graphics processor 208 couples with the set of shared cache units 206, and the system agent core 210, including the one or more integrated memory controllers 214. In some embodiments, the system agent core 210 also includes a display controller 211 to drive graphics processor output to one or more coupled displays. In some embodiments, display controller 211 may also be a separate module coupled with the graphics processor via at least one interconnect, or may be integrated within the graphics processor 208.

In some embodiments, a ring based interconnect unit 212 is used to couple the internal components of the processor 200. However, an alternative interconnect unit may be used, such as a point-to-point interconnect, a switched interconnect, or other techniques, including techniques well known in the art. In some embodiments, graphics processor 208 couples with the ring interconnect 212 via an I/O link 213.

The exemplary I/O link 213 represents at least one of multiple varieties of I/O interconnects, including an on package I/O interconnect which facilitates communication between various processor components and a high-performance embedded memory module 218, such as an eDRAM module. In some embodiments, each of the processor cores 202A-202N and graphics processor 208 use embedded memory modules 218 as a shared Last Level Cache.

In some embodiments, processor cores 202A-202N are homogenous cores executing the same instruction set architecture. In another embodiment, processor cores 202A-202N are heterogeneous in terms of instruction set architecture (ISA), where one or more of processor cores 202A-202N execute a first instruction set, while at least one of the other cores executes a subset of the first instruction set or a different instruction set. In one embodiment processor cores 202A-202N are heterogeneous in terms of microarchitecture, where one or more cores having a relatively higher power consumption couple with one or more power cores having a lower power consumption. Additionally, processor 200 can be implemented on one or more chips or as an SoC integrated circuit having the illustrated components, in addition to other components.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a graphics processor 300, which may be a discrete graphics processing unit, or may be a graphics processor integrated with a plurality of processing cores. In some embodiments, the graphics processor communicates via a memory mapped I/O interface to registers on the graphics processor and with commands placed into the processor memory. In some embodiments, graphics processor 300 includes a memory interface 314 to access memory. Memory interface 314 can be an interface to local memory, one or more internal caches, one or more shared external caches, and/or to system memory.

In some embodiments, graphics processor 300 also includes a display controller 302 to drive display output data to a display device 320. Display controller 302 includes hardware for one or more overlay planes for the display and composition of multiple layers of video or user interface elements. The display device 320 can be an internal or external display device. In one embodiment the display device 320 is a head mounted display device, such as a virtual reality (VR) display device or an augmented reality (AR) display device. In some embodiments, graphics processor 300 includes a video codec engine 306 to encode, decode, or transcode media to, from, or between one or more media encoding formats, including, but not limited to Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) formats such as MPEG-2, Advanced Video Coding (AVC) formats such as H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, as well as the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE) 421M/VC-1, and Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) formats such as JPEG, and Motion JPEG (MJPEG) formats.

In some embodiments, graphics processor 300 includes a block image transfer (BLIT) engine 304 to perform two-dimensional (2D) rasterizer operations including, for example, bit-boundary block transfers. However, in one embodiment, 2D graphics operations are performed using one or more components of graphics processing engine (GPE) 310. In some embodiments, GPE 310 is a compute engine for performing graphics operations, including three-dimensional (3D) graphics operations and media operations.

In some embodiments, GPE 310 includes a 3D pipeline 312 for performing 3D operations, such as rendering three-dimensional images and scenes using processing functions that act upon 3D primitive shapes (e.g., rectangle, triangle, etc.). The 3D pipeline 312 includes programmable and fixed function elements that perform various tasks within the element and/or spawn execution threads to a 3D/Media sub-system 315. While 3D pipeline 312 can be used to perform media operations, an embodiment of GPE 310 also includes a media pipeline 316 that is specifically used to perform media operations, such as video post-processing and image enhancement.

In some embodiments, media pipeline 316 includes fixed function or programmable logic units to perform one or more specialized media operations, such as video decode acceleration, video de-interlacing, and video encode acceleration in place of, or on behalf of video codec engine 306. In some embodiments, media pipeline 316 additionally includes a thread spawning unit to spawn threads for execution on 3D/Media sub-system 315. The spawned threads perform computations for the media operations on one or more graphics execution units included in 3D/Media sub-system 315.

In some embodiments, 3D/Media subsystem 315 includes logic for executing threads spawned by 3D pipeline 312 and media pipeline 316. In one embodiment, the pipelines send thread execution requests to 3D/Media subsystem 315, which includes thread dispatch logic for arbitrating and dispatching the various requests to available thread execution resources. The execution resources include an array of graphics execution units to process the 3D and media threads. In some embodiments, 3D/Media subsystem 315 includes one or more internal caches for thread instructions and data. In some embodiments, the subsystem also includes shared memory, including registers and addressable memory, to share data between threads and to store output data.

Graphics Processing Engine

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a graphics processing engine 410 of a graphics processor in accordance with some embodiments. In one embodiment, the graphics processing engine (GPE) 410 is a version of the GPE 310 shown in FIG. 3. Elements of FIG. 4 having the same reference numbers (or names) as the elements of any other figure herein can operate or function in any manner similar to that described elsewhere herein, but are not limited to such. For example, the 3D pipeline 312 and media pipeline 316 of FIG. 3 are illustrated. The media pipeline 316 is optional in some embodiments of the GPE 410 and may not be explicitly included within the GPE 410. For example and in at least one embodiment, a separate media and/or image processor is coupled to the GPE 410.

In some embodiments, GPE 410 couples with or includes a command streamer 403, which provides a command stream to the 3D pipeline 312 and/or media pipelines 316. In some embodiments, command streamer 403 is coupled with memory, which can be system memory, or one or more of internal cache memory and shared cache memory. In some embodiments, command streamer 403 receives commands from the memory and sends the commands to 3D pipeline 312 and/or media pipeline 316. The commands are directives fetched from a ring buffer, which stores commands for the 3D pipeline 312 and media pipeline 316. In one embodiment, the ring buffer can additionally include batch command buffers storing batches of multiple commands. The commands for the 3D pipeline 312 can also include references to data stored in memory, such as but not limited to vertex and geometry data for the 3D pipeline 312 and/or image data and memory objects for the media pipeline 316. The 3D pipeline 312 and media pipeline 316 process the commands and data by performing operations via logic within the respective pipelines or by dispatching one or more execution threads to a graphics core array 414. In one embodiment the graphics core array 414 include one or more blocks of graphics cores (e.g., graphics core(s) 415A, graphics core(s) 415B), each block including one or more graphics cores. Each graphics core includes a set of graphics execution resources that includes general-purpose and graphics specific execution logic to perform graphics and compute operations, as well as fixed function texture processing and/or machine learning and artificial intelligence acceleration logic.

In various embodiments the 3D pipeline 312 includes fixed function and programmable logic to process one or more shader programs, such as vertex shaders, geometry shaders, pixel shaders, fragment shaders, compute shaders, or other shader programs, by processing the instructions and dispatching execution threads to the graphics core array 414. The graphics core array 414 provides a unified block of execution resources for use in processing these shader programs. Multi-purpose execution logic (e.g., execution units) within the graphics core(s) 415A-414B of the graphic core array 414 includes support for various 3D API shader languages and can execute multiple simultaneous execution threads associated with multiple shaders.

In some embodiments the graphics core array 414 also includes execution logic to perform media functions, such as video and/or image processing. In one embodiment, the execution units additionally include general-purpose logic that is programmable to perform parallel general-purpose computational operations, in addition to graphics processing operations. The general-purpose logic can perform processing operations in parallel or in conjunction with general-purpose logic within the processor core(s) 107 of FIG. 1 or core 202A-202N as in FIG. 2.

Output data generated by threads executing on the graphics core array 414 can output data to memory in a unified return buffer (URB) 418. The URB 418 can store data for multiple threads. In some embodiments the URB 418 may be used to send data between different threads executing on the graphics core array 414. In some embodiments the URB 418 may additionally be used for synchronization between threads on the graphics core array and fixed function logic within the shared function logic 420.

In some embodiments, graphics core array 414 is scalable, such that the array includes a variable number of graphics cores, each having a variable number of execution units based on the target power and performance level of GPE 410. In one embodiment the execution resources are dynamically scalable, such that execution resources may be enabled or disabled as needed.

The graphics core array 414 couples with shared function logic 420 that includes multiple resources that are shared between the graphics cores in the graphics core array. The shared functions within the shared function logic 420 are hardware logic units that provide specialized supplemental functionality to the graphics core array 414. In various embodiments, shared function logic 420 includes but is not limited to sampler 421, math 422, and inter-thread communication (ITC) 423 logic. Additionally, some embodiments implement one or more cache(s) 425 within the shared function logic 420.

A shared function is implemented where the demand for a given specialized function is insufficient for inclusion within the graphics core array 414. Instead a single instantiation of that specialized function is implemented as a stand-alone entity in the shared function logic 420 and shared among the execution resources within the graphics core array 414. The precise set of functions that are shared between the graphics core array 414 and included within the graphics core array 414 varies across embodiments. In some embodiments, specific shared functions within the shared function logic 420 that are used extensively by the graphics core array 414 may be included within shared function logic 416 within the graphics core array 414. In various embodiments, the shared function logic 416 within the graphics core array 414 can include some or all logic within the shared function logic 420. In one embodiment, all logic elements within the shared function logic 420 may be duplicated within the shared function logic 416 of the graphics core array 414. In one embodiment the shared function logic 420 is excluded in favor of the shared function logic 416 within the graphics core array 414.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of hardware logic of a graphics processor core 500, according to some embodiments described herein. Elements of FIG. 5 having the same reference numbers (or names) as the elements of any other figure herein can operate or function in any manner similar to that described elsewhere herein, but are not limited to such. The illustrated graphics processor core 500, in some embodiments, is included within the graphics core array 414 of FIG. 4. The graphics processor core 500, sometimes referred to as a core slice, can be one or multiple graphics cores within a modular graphics processor. The graphics processor core 500 is exemplary of one graphics core slice, and a graphics processor as described herein may include multiple graphics core slices based on target power and performance envelopes. Each graphics core 500 can include a fixed function block 530 coupled with multiple sub-cores 501A-501F, also referred to as sub-slices, that include modular blocks of general-purpose and fixed function logic.

In some embodiments the fixed function block 530 includes a geometry/fixed function pipeline 536 that can be shared by all sub-cores in the graphics processor 500, for example, in lower performance and/or lower power graphics processor implementations. In various embodiments, the geometry/fixed function pipeline 536 includes a 3D fixed function pipeline (e.g., 3D pipeline 312 as in FIG. 3 and FIG. 4) a video front-end unit, a thread spawner and thread dispatcher, and a unified return buffer manager, which manages unified return buffers, such as the unified return buffer 418 of FIG. 4.

In one embodiment the fixed function block 530 also includes a graphics SoC interface 537, a graphics microcontroller 538, and a media pipeline 539. The graphics SoC interface 537 provides an interface between the graphics core 500 and other processor cores within a system on a chip integrated circuit. The graphics microcontroller 538 is a programmable sub-processor that is configurable to manage various functions of the graphics processor 500, including thread dispatch, scheduling, and pre-emption. The media pipeline 539 (e.g., media pipeline 316 of FIG. 3 and FIG. 4) includes logic to facilitate the decoding, encoding, pre-processing, and/or post-processing of multimedia data, including image and video data. The media pipeline 539 implement media operations via requests to compute or sampling logic within the sub-cores 501-501F.

In one embodiment the SoC interface 537 enables the graphics core 500 to communicate with general-purpose application processor cores (e.g., CPUs) and/or other components within an SoC, including memory hierarchy elements such as a shared last level cache memory, the system RAM, and/or embedded on-chip or on-package DRAM. The SoC interface 537 can also enable communication with fixed function devices within the SoC, such as camera imaging pipelines, and enables the use of and/or implements global memory atomics that may be shared between the graphics core 500 and CPUs within the SoC. The SoC interface 537 can also implement power management controls for the graphics core 500 and enable an interface between a clock domain of the graphic core 500 and other clock domains within the SoC. In one embodiment the SoC interface 537 enables receipt of command buffers from a command streamer and global thread dispatcher that are configured to provide commands and instructions to each of one or more graphics cores within a graphics processor. The commands and instructions can be dispatched to the media pipeline 539, when media operations are to be performed, or a geometry and fixed function pipeline (e.g., geometry and fixed function pipeline 536, geometry and fixed function pipeline 514) when graphics processing operations are to be performed.

The graphics microcontroller 538 can be configured to perform various scheduling and management tasks for the graphics core 500. In one embodiment the graphics microcontroller 538 can perform graphics and/or compute workload scheduling on the various graphics parallel engines within execution unit (EU) arrays 502A-502F, 504A-504F within the sub-cores 501A-501F. In this scheduling model, host software executing on a CPU core of an SoC including the graphics core 500 can submit workloads one of multiple graphic processor doorbells, which invokes a scheduling operation on the appropriate graphics engine. Scheduling operations include determining which workload to run next, submitting a workload to a command streamer, pre-empting existing workloads running on an engine, monitoring progress of a workload, and notifying host software when a workload is complete. In one embodiment the graphics microcontroller 538 can also facilitate low-power or idle states for the graphics core 500, providing the graphics core 500 with the ability to save and restore registers within the graphics core 500 across low-power state transitions independently from the operating system and/or graphics driver software on the system.

The graphics core 500 may have greater than or fewer than the illustrated sub-cores 501A-501F, up to N modular sub-cores. For each set of N sub-cores, the graphics core 500 can also include shared function logic 510, shared and/or cache memory 512, a geometry/fixed function pipeline 514, as well as additional fixed function logic 516 to accelerate various graphics and compute processing operations. The shared function logic 510 can include logic units associated with the shared function logic 420 of FIG. 4 (e.g., sampler, math, and/or inter-thread communication logic) that can be shared by each N sub-cores within the graphics core 500. The shared and/or cache memory 512 can be a last-level cache for the set of N sub-cores 501A-501F within the graphics core 500, and can also serve as shared memory that is accessible by multiple sub-cores. The geometry/fixed function pipeline 514 can be included instead of the geometry/fixed function pipeline 536 within the fixed function block 530 and can include the same or similar logic units.

In one embodiment the graphics core 500 includes additional fixed function logic 516 that can include various fixed function acceleration logic for use by the graphics core 500. In one embodiment the additional fixed function logic 516 includes an additional geometry pipeline for use in position only shading. In position-only shading, two geometry pipelines exist, the full geometry pipeline within the geometry/fixed function pipeline 516, 536, and a cull pipeline, which is an additional geometry pipeline which may be included within the additional fixed function logic 516. In one embodiment the cull pipeline is a trimmed down version of the full geometry pipeline. The full pipeline and the cull pipeline can execute different instances of the same application, each instance having a separate context. Position only shading can hide long cull runs of discarded triangles, enabling shading to be completed earlier in some instances. For example and in one embodiment the cull pipeline logic within the additional fixed function logic 516 can execute position shaders in parallel with the main application and generally generates critical results faster than the full pipeline, as the cull pipeline fetches and shades only the position attribute of the vertices, without performing rasterization and rendering of the pixels to the frame buffer. The cull pipeline can use the generated critical results to compute visibility information for all the triangles without regard to whether those triangles are culled. The full pipeline (which in this instance may be referred to as a replay pipeline) can consume the visibility information to skip the culled triangles to shade only the visible triangles that are finally passed to the rasterization phase.

In one embodiment the additional fixed function logic 516 can also include machine-learning acceleration logic, such as fixed function matrix multiplication logic, for implementations including optimizations for machine learning training or inferencing.

Within each graphics sub-core 501A-501F includes a set of execution resources that may be used to perform graphics, media, and compute operations in response to requests by graphics pipeline, media pipeline, or shader programs. The graphics sub-cores 501A-501F include multiple EU arrays 502A-502F, 504A-504F, thread dispatch and inter-thread communication (TD/IC) logic 503A-503F, a 3D (e.g., texture) sampler 505A-505F, a media sampler 506A-506F, a shader processor 507A-507F, and shared local memory (SLM) 508A-508F. The EU arrays 502A-502F, 504A-504F each include multiple execution units, which are general-purpose graphics processing units capable of performing floating-point and integer/fixed-point logic operations in service of a graphics, media, or compute operation, including graphics, media, or compute shader programs. The TD/IC logic 503A-503F performs local thread dispatch and thread control operations for the execution units within a sub-core and facilitate communication between threads executing on the execution units of the sub-core. The 3D sampler 505A-505F can read texture or other 3D graphics related data into memory. The 3D sampler can read texture data differently based on a configured sample state and the texture format associated with a given texture. The media sampler 506A-506F can perform similar read operations based on the type and format associated with media data. In one embodiment, each graphics sub-core 501A-501F can alternately include a unified 3D and media sampler. Threads executing on the execution units within each of the sub-cores 501A-501F can make use of shared local memory 508A-508F within each sub-core, to enable threads executing within a thread group to execute using a common pool of on-chip memory.

Execution Units

FIGS. 6A-6B illustrate thread execution logic 600 including an array of processing elements employed in a graphics processor core according to embodiments described herein. Elements of FIGS. 6A-6B having the same reference numbers (or names) as the elements of any other figure herein can operate or function in any manner similar to that described elsewhere herein, but are not limited to such. FIG. 6A illustrates an overview of thread execution logic 600, which can include a variant of the hardware logic illustrated with each sub-core 501A-501F of FIG. 5. FIG. 6B illustrates exemplary internal details of an execution unit.

As illustrated in FIG. 6A, in some embodiments thread execution logic 600 includes a shader processor 602, a thread dispatcher 604, instruction cache 606, a scalable execution unit array including a plurality of execution units 608A-608N, a sampler 610, a data cache 612, and a data port 614. In one embodiment the scalable execution unit array can dynamically scale by enabling or disabling one or more execution units (e.g., any of execution unit 608A, 608B, 608C, 608D, through 608N-1 and 608N) based on the computational requirements of a workload. In one embodiment the included components are interconnected via an interconnect fabric that links to each of the components. In some embodiments, thread execution logic 600 includes one or more connections to memory, such as system memory or cache memory, through one or more of instruction cache 606, data port 614, sampler 610, and execution units 608A-608N. In some embodiments, each execution unit (e.g. 608A) is a stand-alone programmable general-purpose computational unit that is capable of executing multiple simultaneous hardware threads while processing multiple data elements in parallel for each thread. In various embodiments, the array of execution units 608A-608N is scalable to include any number individual execution units.

In some embodiments, the execution units 608A-608N are primarily used to execute shader programs. A shader processor 602 can process the various shader programs and dispatch execution threads associated with the shader programs via a thread dispatcher 604. In one embodiment the thread dispatcher includes logic to arbitrate thread initiation requests from the graphics and media pipelines and instantiate the requested threads on one or more execution unit in the execution units 608A-608N. For example, a geometry pipeline can dispatch vertex, tessellation, or geometry shaders to the thread execution logic for processing. In some embodiments, thread dispatcher 604 can also process runtime thread spawning requests from the executing shader programs.

In some embodiments, the execution units 608A-608N support an instruction set that includes native support for many standard 3D graphics shader instructions, such that shader programs from graphics libraries (e.g., Direct 3D and OpenGL) are executed with a minimal translation. The execution units support vertex and geometry processing (e.g., vertex programs, geometry programs, vertex shaders), pixel processing (e.g., pixel shaders, fragment shaders) and general-purpose processing (e.g., compute and media shaders). Each of the execution units 608A-608N is capable of multi-issue single instruction multiple data (SIMD) execution and multi-threaded operation enables an efficient execution environment in the face of higher latency memory accesses. Each hardware thread within each execution unit has a dedicated high-bandwidth register file and associated independent thread-state. Execution is multi-issue per clock to pipelines capable of integer, single and double precision floating point operations, SIMD branch capability, logical operations, transcendental operations, and other miscellaneous operations. While waiting for data from memory or one of the shared functions, dependency logic within the execution units 608A-608N causes a waiting thread to sleep until the requested data has been returned. While the waiting thread is sleeping, hardware resources may be devoted to processing other threads. For example, during a delay associated with a vertex shader operation, an execution unit can perform operations for a pixel shader, fragment shader, or another type of shader program, including a different vertex shader.

Each execution unit in execution units 608A-608N operates on arrays of data elements. The number of data elements is the “execution size,” or the number of channels for the instruction. An execution channel is a logical unit of execution for data element access, masking, and flow control within instructions. The number of channels may be independent of the number of physical Arithmetic Logic Units (ALUs) or Floating Point Units (FPUs) for a particular graphics processor. In some embodiments, execution units 608A-608N support integer and floating-point data types.

The execution unit instruction set includes SIMD instructions. The various data elements can be stored as a packed data type in a register and the execution unit will process the various elements based on the data size of the elements. For example, when operating on a 256-bit wide vector, the 256 bits of the vector are stored in a register and the execution unit operates on the vector as four separate 64-bit packed data elements (Quad-Word (QW) size data elements), eight separate 32-bit packed data elements (Double Word (DW) size data elements), sixteen separate 16-bit packed data elements (Word (W) size data elements), or thirty-two separate 8-bit data elements (byte (B) size data elements). However, different vector widths and register sizes are possible.

In one embodiment one or more execution units can be combined into a fused execution unit 609A-609N having thread control logic (607A-607N) that is common to the fused EUs. Multiple EUs can be fused into an EU group. Each EU in the fused EU group can be configured to execute a separate SIMD hardware thread. The number of EUs in a fused EU group can vary according to embodiments. Additionally, various SIMD widths can be performed per-EU, including but not limited to SIMD8, SIMD16, and SIMD32. Each fused graphics execution unit 609A-609N includes at least two execution units. For example, fused execution unit 609A includes a first EU 608A, second EU 608B, and thread control logic 607A that is common to the first EU 608A and the second EU 608B. The thread control logic 607A controls threads executed on the fused graphics execution unit 609A, allowing each EU within the fused execution units 609A-609N to execute using a common instruction pointer register.

One or more internal instruction caches (e.g., 606) are included in the thread execution logic 600 to cache thread instructions for the execution units. In some embodiments, one or more data caches (e.g., 612) are included to cache thread data during thread execution. In some embodiments, a sampler 610 is included to provide texture sampling for 3D operations and media sampling for media operations. In some embodiments, sampler 610 includes specialized texture or media sampling functionality to process texture or media data during the sampling process before providing the sampled data to an execution unit.

During execution, the graphics and media pipelines send thread initiation requests to thread execution logic 600 via thread spawning and dispatch logic. Once a group of geometric objects has been processed and rasterized into pixel data, pixel processor logic (e.g., pixel shader logic, fragment shader logic, etc.) within the shader processor 602 is invoked to further compute output information and cause results to be written to output surfaces (e.g., color buffers, depth buffers, stencil buffers, etc.). In some embodiments, a pixel shader or fragment shader calculates the values of the various vertex attributes that are to be interpolated across the rasterized object. In some embodiments, pixel processor logic within the shader processor 602 then executes an application programming interface (API)-supplied pixel or fragment shader program. To execute the shader program, the shader processor 602 dispatches threads to an execution unit (e.g., 608A) via thread dispatcher 604. In some embodiments, shader processor 602 uses texture sampling logic in the sampler 610 to access texture data in texture maps stored in memory. Arithmetic operations on the texture data and the input geometry data compute pixel color data for each geometric fragment, or discards one or more pixels from further processing.

In some embodiments, the data port 614 provides a memory access mechanism for the thread execution logic 600 to output processed data to memory for further processing on a graphics processor output pipeline. In some embodiments, the data port 614 includes or couples to one or more cache memories (e.g., data cache 612) to cache data for memory access via the data port.

As illustrated in FIG. 6B, a graphics execution unit 608 can include an instruction fetch unit 637, a general register file array (GRF) 624, an architectural register file array (ARF) 626, a thread arbiter 622, a send unit 630, a branch unit 632, a set of SIMD floating point units (FPUs) 634, and in one embodiment a set of dedicated integer SIMD ALUs 635. The GRF 624 and ARF 626 includes the set of general register files and architecture register files associated with each simultaneous hardware thread that may be active in the graphics execution unit 608. In one embodiment, per thread architectural state is maintained in the ARF 626, while data used during thread execution is stored in the GRF 624. The execution state of each thread, including the instruction pointers for each thread, can be held in thread-specific registers in the ARF 626.

In one embodiment the graphics execution unit 608 has an architecture that is a combination of Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) and fine-grained Interleaved Multi-Threading (IMT). The architecture has a modular configuration that can be fine-tuned at design time based on a target number of simultaneous threads and number of registers per execution unit, where execution unit resources are divided across logic used to execute multiple simultaneous threads.

In one embodiment, the graphics execution unit 608 can co-issue multiple instructions, which may each be different instructions. The thread arbiter 622 of the graphics execution unit thread 608 can dispatch the instructions to one of the send unit 630, branch unit 642, or SIMD FPU(s) 634 for execution. Each execution thread can access 128 general-purpose registers within the GRF 624, where each register can store 32 bytes, accessible as a SIMD 8-element vector of 32-bit data elements. In one embodiment, each execution unit thread has access to 4 Kbytes within the GRF 624, although embodiments are not so limited, and greater or fewer register resources may be provided in other embodiments. In one embodiment up to seven threads can execute simultaneously, although the number of threads per execution unit can also vary according to embodiments. In an embodiment in which seven threads may access 4 Kbytes, the GRF 624 can store a total of 28 Kbytes. Flexible addressing modes can permit registers to be addressed together to build effectively wider registers or to represent strided rectangular block data structures.

In one embodiment, memory operations, sampler operations, and other longer-latency system communications are dispatched via “send” instructions that are executed by the message passing send unit 630. In one embodiment, branch instructions are dispatched to a dedicated branch unit 632 to facilitate SIMD divergence and eventual convergence.

In one embodiment the graphics execution unit 608 includes one or more SIMD floating point units (FPU(s)) 634 to perform floating-point operations. In one embodiment, the FPU(s) 634 also support integer computation. In one embodiment the FPU(s) 634 can SIMD execute up to M number of 32-bit floating-point (or integer) operations, or SIMD execute up to 2M 16-bit integer or 16-bit floating-point operations. In one embodiment, at least one of the FPU(s) provides extended math capability to support high-throughput transcendental math functions and double precision 64-bit floating-point. In some embodiments, a set of 8-bit integer SIMD ALUs 635 are also present, and may be specifically optimized to perform operations associated with machine learning computations.

In one embodiment, arrays of multiple instances of the graphics execution unit 608 can be instantiated in a graphics sub-core grouping (e.g., a sub-slice). For scalability, product architects can choose the exact number of execution units per sub-core grouping. In one embodiment the execution unit 608 can execute instructions across a plurality of execution channels. In a further embodiment, each thread executed on the graphics execution unit 608 is executed on a different channel.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating a graphics processor instruction formats 700 according to some embodiments. In one or more embodiment, the graphics processor execution units support an instruction set having instructions in multiple formats. The solid lined boxes illustrate the components that are generally included in an execution unit instruction, while the dashed lines include components that are optional or that are only included in a sub-set of the instructions. In some embodiments, instruction format 700 described and illustrated are macro-instructions, in that they are instructions supplied to the execution unit, as opposed to micro-operations resulting from instruction decode once the instruction is processed.

In some embodiments, the graphics processor execution units natively support instructions in a 128-bit instruction format 710. A 64-bit compacted instruction format 730 is available for some instructions based on the selected instruction, instruction options, and number of operands. The native 128-bit instruction format 710 provides access to all instruction options, while some options and operations are restricted in the 64-bit format 730. The native instructions available in the 64-bit format 730 vary by embodiment. In some embodiments, the instruction is compacted in part using a set of index values in an index field 713. The execution unit hardware references a set of compaction tables based on the index values and uses the compaction table outputs to reconstruct a native instruction in the 128-bit instruction format 710.

For each format, instruction opcode 712 defines the operation that the execution unit is to perform. The execution units execute each instruction in parallel across the multiple data elements of each operand. For example, in response to an add instruction the execution unit performs a simultaneous add operation across each color channel representing a texture element or picture element. By default, the execution unit performs each instruction across all data channels of the operands. In some embodiments, instruction control field 714 enables control over certain execution options, such as channels selection (e.g., predication) and data channel order (e.g., swizzle). For instructions in the 128-bit instruction format 710 an exec-size field 716 limits the number of data channels that will be executed in parallel. In some embodiments, exec-size field 716 is not available for use in the 64-bit compact instruction format 730.

Some execution unit instructions have up to three operands including two source operands, src0 720, src1 722, and one destination 718. In some embodiments, the execution units support dual destination instructions, where one of the destinations is implied. Data manipulation instructions can have a third source operand (e.g., SRC2 724), where the instruction opcode 712 determines the number of source operands. An instruction's last source operand can be an immediate (e.g., hard-coded) value passed with the instruction.

In some embodiments, the 128-bit instruction format 710 includes an access/address mode field 726 specifying, for example, whether direct register addressing mode or indirect register addressing mode is used. When direct register addressing mode is used, the register address of one or more operands is directly provided by bits in the instruction.

In some embodiments, the 128-bit instruction format 710 includes an access/address mode field 726, which specifies an address mode and/or an access mode for the instruction. In one embodiment the access mode is used to define a data access alignment for the instruction. Some embodiments support access modes including a 16-byte aligned access mode and a 1-byte aligned access mode, where the byte alignment of the access mode determines the access alignment of the instruction operands. For example, when in a first mode, the instruction may use byte-aligned addressing for source and destination operands and when in a second mode, the instruction may use 16-byte-aligned addressing for all source and destination operands.

In one embodiment, the address mode portion of the access/address mode field 726 determines whether the instruction is to use direct or indirect addressing. When direct register addressing mode is used bits in the instruction directly provide the register address of one or more operands. When indirect register addressing mode is used, the register address of one or more operands may be computed based on an address register value and an address immediate field in the instruction.

In some embodiments instructions are grouped based on opcode 712 bit-fields to simplify Opcode decode 740. For an 8-bit opcode, bits 4, 5, and 6 allow the execution unit to determine the type of opcode. The precise opcode grouping shown is merely an example. In some embodiments, a move and logic opcode group 742 includes data movement and logic instructions (e.g., move (mov), compare (cmp)). In some embodiments, move and logic group 742 shares the five most significant bits (MSB), where move (mov) instructions are in the form of 0000xxxxb and logic instructions are in the form of 0001xxxxb. A flow control instruction group 744 (e.g., call, jump (jmp)) includes instructions in the form of 0010xxxxb (e.g., 0x20). A miscellaneous instruction group 746 includes a mix of instructions, including synchronization instructions (e.g., wait, send) in the form of 0011xxxxb (e.g., 0x30). A parallel math instruction group 748 includes component-wise arithmetic instructions (e.g., add, multiply (mul)) in the form of 0100xxxxb (e.g., 0x40). The parallel math group 748 performs the arithmetic operations in parallel across data channels. The vector math group 750 includes arithmetic instructions (e.g., dp4) in the form of 0101xxxxb (e.g., 0x50). The vector math group performs arithmetic such as dot product calculations on vector operands.

Graphics Pipeline

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of another embodiment of a graphics processor 800. Elements of FIG. 8 having the same reference numbers (or names) as the elements of any other figure herein can operate or function in any manner similar to that described elsewhere herein, but are not limited to such.

In some embodiments, graphics processor 800 includes a geometry pipeline 820, a media pipeline 830, a display engine 840, thread execution logic 850, and a render output pipeline 870. In some embodiments, graphics processor 800 is a graphics processor within a multi-core processing system that includes one or more general-purpose processing cores. The graphics processor is controlled by register writes to one or more control registers (not shown) or via commands issued to graphics processor 800 via a ring interconnect 802. In some embodiments, ring interconnect 802 couples graphics processor 800 to other processing components, such as other graphics processors or general-purpose processors. Commands from ring interconnect 802 are interpreted by a command streamer 803, which supplies instructions to individual components of the geometry pipeline 820 or the media pipeline 830.

In some embodiments, command streamer 803 directs the operation of a vertex fetcher 805 that reads vertex data from memory and executes vertex-processing commands provided by command streamer 803. In some embodiments, vertex fetcher 805 provides vertex data to a vertex shader 807, which performs coordinate space transformation and lighting operations to each vertex. In some embodiments, vertex fetcher 805 and vertex shader 807 execute vertex-processing instructions by dispatching execution threads to execution units 852A-852B via a thread dispatcher 831.

In some embodiments, execution units 852A-852B are an array of vector processors having an instruction set for performing graphics and media operations. In some embodiments, execution units 852A-852B have an attached L1 cache 851 that is specific for each array or shared between the arrays. The cache can be configured as a data cache, an instruction cache, or a single cache that is partitioned to contain data and instructions in different partitions.

In some embodiments, geometry pipeline 820 includes tessellation components to perform hardware-accelerated tessellation of 3D objects. In some embodiments, a programmable hull shader 811 configures the tessellation operations. A programmable domain shader 817 provides back-end evaluation of tessellation output. A tessellator 813 operates at the direction of hull shader 811 and contains special purpose logic to generate a set of detailed geometric objects based on a coarse geometric model that is provided as input to geometry pipeline 820. In some embodiments, if tessellation is not used, tessellation components (e.g., hull shader 811, tessellator 813, and domain shader 817) can be bypassed.

In some embodiments, complete geometric objects can be processed by a geometry shader 819 via one or more threads dispatched to execution units 852A-852B, or can proceed directly to the clipper 829. In some embodiments, the geometry shader operates on entire geometric objects, rather than vertices or patches of vertices as in previous stages of the graphics pipeline. If the tessellation is disabled the geometry shader 819 receives input from the vertex shader 807. In some embodiments, geometry shader 819 is programmable by a geometry shader program to perform geometry tessellation if the tessellation units are disabled.

Before rasterization, a clipper 829 processes vertex data. The clipper 829 may be a fixed function clipper or a programmable clipper having clipping and geometry shader functions. In some embodiments, a rasterizer and depth test component 873 in the render output pipeline 870 dispatches pixel shaders to convert the geometric objects into per pixel representations. In some embodiments, pixel shader logic is included in thread execution logic 850. In some embodiments, an application can bypass the rasterizer and depth test component 873 and access un-rasterized vertex data via a stream out unit 823.

The graphics processor 800 has an interconnect bus, interconnect fabric, or some other interconnect mechanism that allows data and message passing amongst the major components of the processor. In some embodiments, execution units 852A-852B and associated logic units (e.g., L1 cache 851, sampler 854, texture cache 858, etc.) interconnect via a data port 856 to perform memory access and communicate with render output pipeline components of the processor. In some embodiments, sampler 854, caches 851, 858 and execution units 852A-852B each have separate memory access paths. In one embodiment the texture cache 858 can also be configured as a sampler cache.

In some embodiments, render output pipeline 870 contains a rasterizer and depth test component 873 that converts vertex-based objects into an associated pixel-based representation. In some embodiments, the rasterizer logic includes a windower/masker unit to perform fixed function triangle and line rasterization. An associated render cache 878 and depth cache 879 are also available in some embodiments. A pixel operations component 877 performs pixel-based operations on the data, though in some instances, pixel operations associated with 2D operations (e.g. bit block image transfers with blending) are performed by the 2D engine 841, or substituted at display time by the display controller 843 using overlay display planes. In some embodiments, a shared L3 cache 875 is available to all graphics components, allowing the sharing of data without the use of main system memory.

In some embodiments, graphics processor media pipeline 830 includes a media engine 837 and a video front-end 834. In some embodiments, video front-end 834 receives pipeline commands from the command streamer 803. In some embodiments, media pipeline 830 includes a separate command streamer. In some embodiments, video front-end 834 processes media commands before sending the command to the media engine 837. In some embodiments, media engine 837 includes thread spawning functionality to spawn threads for dispatch to thread execution logic 850 via thread dispatcher 831.

In some embodiments, graphics processor 800 includes a display engine 840. In some embodiments, display engine 840 is external to processor 800 and couples with the graphics processor via the ring interconnect 802, or some other interconnect bus or fabric. In some embodiments, display engine 840 includes a 2D engine 841 and a display controller 843. In some embodiments, display engine 840 contains special purpose logic capable of operating independently of the 3D pipeline. In some embodiments, display controller 843 couples with a display device (not shown), which may be a system integrated display device, as in a laptop computer, or an external display device attached via a display device connector.

In some embodiments, the geometry pipeline 820 and media pipeline 830 are configurable to perform operations based on multiple graphics and media programming interfaces and are not specific to any one application programming interface (API). In some embodiments, driver software for the graphics processor translates API calls that are specific to a particular graphics or media library into commands that can be processed by the graphics processor. In some embodiments, support is provided for the Open Graphics Library (OpenGL), Open Computing Language (OpenCL), and/or Vulkan graphics and compute API, all from the Khronos Group. In some embodiments, support may also be provided for the Direct3D library from the Microsoft Corporation. In some embodiments, a combination of these libraries may be supported. Support may also be provided for the Open Source Computer Vision Library (OpenCV). A future API with a compatible 3D pipeline would also be supported if a mapping can be made from the pipeline of the future API to the pipeline of the graphics processor.

Graphics Pipeline Programming

FIG. 9A is a block diagram illustrating a graphics processor command format 900 according to some embodiments. FIG. 9B is a block diagram illustrating a graphics processor command sequence 910 according to an embodiment. The solid lined boxes in FIG. 9A illustrate the components that are generally included in a graphics command while the dashed lines include components that are optional or that are only included in a sub-set of the graphics commands. The exemplary graphics processor command format 900 of FIG. 9A includes data fields to identify a client 902, a command operation code (opcode) 904, and data 906 for the command. A sub-opcode 905 and a command size 908 are also included in some commands.

In some embodiments, client 902 specifies the client unit of the graphics device that processes the command data. In some embodiments, a graphics processor command parser examines the client field of each command to condition the further processing of the command and route the command data to the appropriate client unit. In some embodiments, the graphics processor client units include a memory interface unit, a render unit, a 2D unit, a 3D unit, and a media unit. Each client unit has a corresponding processing pipeline that processes the commands. Once the command is received by the client unit, the client unit reads the opcode 904 and, if present, sub-opcode 905 to determine the operation to perform. The client unit performs the command using information in data field 906. For some commands an explicit command size 908 is expected to specify the size of the command. In some embodiments, the command parser automatically determines the size of at least some of the commands based on the command opcode. In some embodiments commands are aligned via multiples of a double word.

The flow diagram in FIG. 9B illustrates an exemplary graphics processor command sequence 910. In some embodiments, software or firmware of a data processing system that features an embodiment of a graphics processor uses a version of the command sequence shown to set up, execute, and terminate a set of graphics operations. A sample command sequence is shown and described for purposes of example only as embodiments are not limited to these specific commands or to this command sequence. Moreover, the commands may be issued as batch of commands in a command sequence, such that the graphics processor will process the sequence of commands in at least partially concurrence.

In some embodiments, the graphics processor command sequence 910 may begin with a pipeline flush command 912 to cause any active graphics pipeline to complete the currently pending commands for the pipeline. In some embodiments, the 3D pipeline 922 and the media pipeline 924 do not operate concurrently. The pipeline flush is performed to cause the active graphics pipeline to complete any pending commands. In response to a pipeline flush, the command parser for the graphics processor will pause command processing until the active drawing engines complete pending operations and the relevant read caches are invalidated. Optionally, any data in the render cache that is marked ‘dirty’ can be flushed to memory. In some embodiments, pipeline flush command 912 can be used for pipeline synchronization or before placing the graphics processor into a low power state.

In some embodiments, a pipeline select command 913 is used when a command sequence requires the graphics processor to explicitly switch between pipelines. In some embodiments, a pipeline select command 913 is required only once within an execution context before issuing pipeline commands unless the context is to issue commands for both pipelines. In some embodiments, a pipeline flush command 912 is required immediately before a pipeline switch via the pipeline select command 913.

In some embodiments, a pipeline control command 914 configures a graphics pipeline for operation and is used to program the 3D pipeline 922 and the media pipeline 924. In some embodiments, pipeline control command 914 configures the pipeline state for the active pipeline. In one embodiment, the pipeline control command 914 is used for pipeline synchronization and to clear data from one or more cache memories within the active pipeline before processing a batch of commands.

In some embodiments, return buffer state commands 916 are used to configure a set of return buffers for the respective pipelines to write data. Some pipeline operations require the allocation, selection, or configuration of one or more return buffers into which the operations write intermediate data during processing. In some embodiments, the graphics processor also uses one or more return buffers to store output data and to perform cross thread communication. In some embodiments, the return buffer state 916 includes selecting the size and number of return buffers to use for a set of pipeline operations.

The remaining commands in the command sequence differ based on the active pipeline for operations. Based on a pipeline determination 920, the command sequence is tailored to the 3D pipeline 922 beginning with the 3D pipeline state 930 or the media pipeline 924 beginning at the media pipeline state 940.

The commands to configure the 3D pipeline state 930 include 3D state setting commands for vertex buffer state, vertex element state, constant color state, depth buffer state, and other state variables that are to be configured before 3D primitive commands are processed. The values of these commands are determined at least in part based on the particular 3D API in use. In some embodiments, 3D pipeline state 930 commands are also able to selectively disable or bypass certain pipeline elements if those elements will not be used.

In some embodiments, 3D primitive 932 command is used to submit 3D primitives to be processed by the 3D pipeline. Commands and associated parameters that are passed to the graphics processor via the 3D primitive 932 command are forwarded to the vertex fetch function in the graphics pipeline. The vertex fetch function uses the 3D primitive 932 command data to generate vertex data structures. The vertex data structures are stored in one or more return buffers. In some embodiments, 3D primitive 932 command is used to perform vertex operations on 3D primitives via vertex shaders. To process vertex shaders, 3D pipeline 922 dispatches shader execution threads to graphics processor execution units.

In some embodiments, 3D pipeline 922 is triggered via an execute 934 command or event. In some embodiments, a register write triggers command execution. In some embodiments execution is triggered via a ‘go’ or ‘kick’ command in the command sequence. In one embodiment, command execution is triggered using a pipeline synchronization command to flush the command sequence through the graphics pipeline. The 3D pipeline will perform geometry processing for the 3D primitives. Once operations are complete, the resulting geometric objects are rasterized and the pixel engine colors the resulting pixels. Additional commands to control pixel shading and pixel back end operations may also be included for those operations.

In some embodiments, the graphics processor command sequence 910 follows the media pipeline 924 path when performing media operations. In general, the specific use and manner of programming for the media pipeline 924 depends on the media or compute operations to be performed. Specific media decode operations may be offloaded to the media pipeline during media decode. In some embodiments, the media pipeline can also be bypassed and media decode can be performed in whole or in part using resources provided by one or more general-purpose processing cores. In one embodiment, the media pipeline also includes elements for general-purpose graphics processor unit (GPGPU) operations, where the graphics processor is used to perform SIMD vector operations using computational shader programs that are not explicitly related to the rendering of graphics primitives.

In some embodiments, media pipeline 924 is configured in a similar manner as the 3D pipeline 922. A set of commands to configure the media pipeline state 940 are dispatched or placed into a command queue before the media object commands 942. In some embodiments, commands for the media pipeline state 940 include data to configure the media pipeline elements that will be used to process the media objects. This includes data to configure the video decode and video encode logic within the media pipeline, such as encode or decode format. In some embodiments, commands for the media pipeline state 940 also support the use of one or more pointers to “indirect” state elements that contain a batch of state settings.

In some embodiments, media object commands 942 supply pointers to media objects for processing by the media pipeline. The media objects include memory buffers containing video data to be processed. In some embodiments, all media pipeline states must be valid before issuing a media object command 942. Once the pipeline state is configured and media object commands 942 are queued, the media pipeline 924 is triggered via an execute command 944 or an equivalent execute event (e.g., register write). Output from media pipeline 924 may then be post processed by operations provided by the 3D pipeline 922 or the media pipeline 924. In some embodiments, GPGPU operations are configured and executed in a similar manner as media operations.

Graphics Software Architecture

FIG. 10 illustrates exemplary graphics software architecture for a data processing system 1000 according to some embodiments. In some embodiments, software architecture includes a 3D graphics application 1010, an operating system 1020, and at least one processor 1030. In some embodiments, processor 1030 includes a graphics processor 1032 and one or more general-purpose processor core(s) 1034. The graphics application 1010 and operating system 1020 each execute in the system memory 1050 of the data processing system.

In some embodiments, 3D graphics application 1010 contains one or more shader programs including shader instructions 1012. The shader language instructions may be in a high-level shader language, such as the High Level Shader Language (HLSL) or the OpenGL Shader Language (GLSL). The application also includes executable instructions 1014 in a machine language suitable for execution by the general-purpose processor core 1034. The application also includes graphics objects 1016 defined by vertex data.

In some embodiments, operating system 1020 is a Microsoft® Windows® operating system from the Microsoft Corporation, a proprietary UNIX-like operating system, or an open source UNIX-like operating system using a variant of the Linux kernel. The operating system 1020 can support a graphics API 1022 such as the Direct3D API, the OpenGL API, or the Vulkan API. When the Direct3D API is in use, the operating system 1020 uses a front-end shader compiler 1024 to compile any shader instructions 1012 in HLSL into a lower-level shader language. The compilation may be a just-in-time (JIT) compilation or the application can perform shader pre-compilation. In some embodiments, high-level shaders are compiled into low-level shaders during the compilation of the 3D graphics application 1010. In some embodiments, the shader instructions 1012 are provided in an intermediate form, such as a version of the Standard Portable Intermediate Representation (SPIR) used by the Vulkan API.

In some embodiments, user mode graphics driver 1026 contains a back-end shader compiler 1027 to convert the shader instructions 1012 into a hardware specific representation. When the OpenGL API is in use, shader instructions 1012 in the GLSL high-level language are passed to a user mode graphics driver 1026 for compilation. In some embodiments, user mode graphics driver 1026 uses operating system kernel mode functions 1028 to communicate with a kernel mode graphics driver 1029. In some embodiments, kernel mode graphics driver 1029 communicates with graphics processor 1032 to dispatch commands and instructions.

IP Core Implementations

One or more aspects of at least one embodiment may be implemented by representative code stored on a machine-readable medium which represents and/or defines logic within an integrated circuit such as a processor. For example, the machine-readable medium may include instructions which represent various logic within the processor. When read by a machine, the instructions may cause the machine to fabricate the logic to perform the techniques described herein. Such representations, known as “IP cores,” are reusable units of logic for an integrated circuit that may be stored on a tangible, machine-readable medium as a hardware model that describes the structure of the integrated circuit. The hardware model may be supplied to various customers or manufacturing facilities, which load the hardware model on fabrication machines that manufacture the integrated circuit. The integrated circuit may be fabricated such that the circuit performs operations described in association with any of the embodiments described herein.

FIG. 11A is a block diagram illustrating an IP core development system 1100 that may be used to manufacture an integrated circuit to perform operations according to an embodiment. The IP core development system 1100 may be used to generate modular, re-usable designs that can be incorporated into a larger design or used to construct an entire integrated circuit (e.g., an SOC integrated circuit). A design facility 1130 can generate a software simulation 1110 of an IP core design in a high-level programming language (e.g., C/C++). The software simulation 1110 can be used to design, test, and verify the behavior of the IP core using a simulation model 1112. The simulation model 1112 may include functional, behavioral, and/or timing simulations. A register transfer level (RTL) design 1115 can then be created or synthesized from the simulation model 1112. The RTL design 1115 is an abstraction of the behavior of the integrated circuit that models the flow of digital signals between hardware registers, including the associated logic performed using the modeled digital signals. In addition to an RTL design 1115, lower-level designs at the logic level or transistor level may also be created, designed, or synthesized. Thus, the particular details of the initial design and simulation may vary.

The RTL design 1115 or equivalent may be further synthesized by the design facility into a hardware model 1120, which may be in a hardware description language (HDL), or some other representation of physical design data. The HDL may be further simulated or tested to verify the IP core design. The IP core design can be stored for delivery to a 3^(rd) party fabrication facility 1165 using non-volatile memory 1140 (e.g., hard disk, flash memory, or any non-volatile storage medium). Alternatively, the IP core design may be transmitted (e.g., via the Internet) over a wired connection 1150 or wireless connection 1160. The fabrication facility 1165 may then fabricate an integrated circuit that is based at least in part on the IP core design. The fabricated integrated circuit can be configured to perform operations in accordance with at least one embodiment described herein.

FIG. 11B illustrates a cross-section side view of an integrated circuit package assembly 1170, according to some embodiments described herein. The integrated circuit package assembly 1170 illustrates an implementation of one or more processor or accelerator devices as described herein. The package assembly 1170 includes multiple units of hardware logic 1172, 1174 connected to a substrate 1180. The logic 1172, 1174 may be implemented at least partly in configurable logic or fixed-functionality logic hardware, and can include one or more portions of any of the processor core(s), graphics processor(s), or other accelerator devices described herein. Each unit of logic 1172, 1174 can be implemented within a semiconductor die and coupled with the substrate 1180 via an interconnect structure 1173. The interconnect structure 1173 may be configured to route electrical signals between the logic 1172, 1174 and the substrate 1180, and can include interconnects such as, but not limited to bumps or pillars. In some embodiments, the interconnect structure 1173 may be configured to route electrical signals such as, for example, input/output (I/O) signals and/or power or ground signals associated with the operation of the logic 1172, 1174. In some embodiments, the substrate 1180 is an epoxy-based laminate substrate. The package assembly 1170 may include other suitable types of substrates in other embodiments. The package assembly 1170 can be connected to other electrical devices via a package interconnect 1183. The package interconnect 1183 may be coupled to a surface of the substrate 1180 to route electrical signals to other electrical devices, such as a motherboard, other chipset, or multi-chip module.

In some embodiments, the units of logic 1172, 1174 are electrically coupled with a bridge 1182 that is configured to route electrical signals between the logic 1172, 1174. The bridge 1182 may be a dense interconnect structure that provides a route for electrical signals. The bridge 1182 may include a bridge substrate composed of glass or a suitable semiconductor material. Electrical routing features can be formed on the bridge substrate to provide a chip-to-chip connection between the logic 1172, 1174.

Although two units of logic 1172, 1174 and a bridge 1182 are illustrated, embodiments described herein may include more or fewer logic units on one or more dies. The one or more dies may be connected by zero or more bridges, as the bridge 1182 may be excluded when the logic is included on a single die. Alternatively, multiple dies or units of logic can be connected by one or more bridges. Additionally, multiple logic units, dies, and bridges can be connected together in other possible configurations, including three-dimensional configurations.

Exemplary System on a Chip Integrated Circuit

FIGS. 12-14 illustrated exemplary integrated circuits and associated graphics processors that may be fabricated using one or more IP cores, according to various embodiments described herein. In addition to what is illustrated, other logic and circuits may be included, including additional graphics processors/cores, peripheral interface controllers, or general-purpose processor cores.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary system on a chip integrated circuit 1200 that may be fabricated using one or more IP cores, according to an embodiment. Exemplary integrated circuit 1200 includes one or more application processor(s) 1205 (e.g., CPUs), at least one graphics processor 1210, and may additionally include an image processor 1215 and/or a video processor 1220, any of which may be a modular IP core from the same or multiple different design facilities. Integrated circuit 1200 includes peripheral or bus logic including a USB controller 1225, UART controller 1230, an SPI/SDIO controller 1235, and an I²S/I²C controller 1240. Additionally, the integrated circuit can include a display device 1245 coupled to one or more of a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) controller 1250 and a mobile industry processor interface (MIPI) display interface 1255. Storage may be provided by a flash memory subsystem 1260 including flash memory and a flash memory controller. Memory interface may be provided via a memory controller 1265 for access to SDRAM or SRAM memory devices. Some integrated circuits additionally include an embedded security engine 1270.

FIGS. 13A-13B are block diagrams illustrating exemplary graphics processors for use within an SoC, according to embodiments described herein. FIG. 13A illustrates an exemplary graphics processor 1310 of a system on a chip integrated circuit that may be fabricated using one or more IP cores, according to an embodiment. FIG. 13B illustrates an additional exemplary graphics processor 1340 of a system on a chip integrated circuit that may be fabricated using one or more IP cores, according to an embodiment. Graphics processor 1310 of FIG. 13A is an example of a low power graphics processor core. Graphics processor 1340 of FIG. 13B is an example of a higher performance graphics processor core. Each of the graphics processors 1310, 1340 can be variants of the graphics processor 1210 of FIG. 12.

As shown in FIG. 13A, graphics processor 1310 includes a vertex processor 1305 and one or more fragment processor(s) 1315A-1315N (e.g., 1315A, 1315B, 1315C, 1315D, through 1315N-1, and 1315N). Graphics processor 1310 can execute different shader programs via separate logic, such that the vertex processor 1305 is optimized to execute operations for vertex shader programs, while the one or more fragment processor(s) 1315A-1315N execute fragment (e.g., pixel) shading operations for fragment or pixel shader programs. The vertex processor 1305 performs the vertex processing stage of the 3D graphics pipeline and generates primitives and vertex data. The fragment processor(s) 1315A-1315N use the primitive and vertex data generated by the vertex processor 1305 to produce a frame buffer that is displayed on a display device. In one embodiment, the fragment processor(s) 1315A-1315N are optimized to execute fragment shader programs as provided for in the OpenGL API, which may be used to perform similar operations as a pixel shader program as provided for in the Direct 3D API.

Graphics processor 1310 additionally includes one or more memory management units (MMUs) 1320A-1320B, cache(s) 1325A-1325B, and circuit interconnect(s) 1330A-1330B. The one or more MMU(s) 1320A-1320B provide for virtual to physical address mapping for the graphics processor 1310, including for the vertex processor 1305 and/or fragment processor(s) 1315A-1315N, which may reference vertex or image/texture data stored in memory, in addition to vertex or image/texture data stored in the one or more cache(s) 1325A-1325B. In one embodiment the one or more MMU(s) 1320A-1320B may be synchronized with other MMUs within the system, including one or more MMUs associated with the one or more application processor(s) 1205, image processor 1215, and/or video processor 1220 of FIG. 12, such that each processor 1205-1220 can participate in a shared or unified virtual memory system. The one or more circuit interconnect(s) 1330A-1330B enable graphics processor 1310 to interface with other IP cores within the SoC, either via an internal bus of the SoC or via a direct connection, according to embodiments.

As shown FIG. 13B, graphics processor 1340 includes the one or more MMU(s) 1320A-1320B, caches 1325A-1325B, and circuit interconnects 1330A-1330B of the graphics processor 1310 of FIG. 13A. Graphics processor 1340 includes one or more shader core(s) 1355A-1355N (e.g., 1455A, 1355B, 1355C, 1355D, 1355E, 1355F, through 1355N-1, and 1355N), which provides for a unified shader core architecture in which a single core or type or core can execute all types of programmable shader code, including shader program code to implement vertex shaders, fragment shaders, and/or compute shaders. The exact number of shader cores present can vary among embodiments and implementations. Additionally, graphics processor 1340 includes an inter-core task manager 1345, which acts as a thread dispatcher to dispatch execution threads to one or more shader cores 1355A-1355N and a tiling unit 1358 to accelerate tiling operations for tile-based rendering, in which rendering operations for a scene are subdivided in image space, for example to exploit local spatial coherence within a scene or to optimize use of internal caches.

FIGS. 14A-14B illustrate additional exemplary graphics processor logic according to embodiments described herein. FIG. 14A illustrates a graphics core 1400 that may be included within the graphics processor 1210 of FIG. 12, and may be a unified shader core 1355A-1355N as in FIG. 13B. FIG. 14B illustrates a highly-parallel general-purpose graphics processing unit 1430 suitable for deployment on a multi-chip module.

As shown in FIG. 14A, the graphics core 1400 includes a shared instruction cache 1402, a texture unit 1418, and a cache/shared memory 1420 that are common to the execution resources within the graphics core 1400. The graphics core 1400 can include multiple slices 1401A-1401N or partition for each core, and a graphics processor can include multiple instances of the graphics core 1400. The slices 1401A-1401N can include support logic including a local instruction cache 1404A-1404N, a thread scheduler 1406A-1406N, a thread dispatcher 1408A-1408N, and a set of registers 1410A. To perform logic operations, the slices 1401A-1401N can include a set of additional function units (AFUs 1412A-1412N), floating-point units (FPU 1414A-1414N), integer arithmetic logic units (ALUs 1416-1416N), address computational units (ACU 1413A-1413N), double-precision floating-point units (DPFPU 1415A-1415N), and matrix processing units (MPU 1417A-1417N).

Some of the computational units operate at a specific precision. For example, the FPUs 1414A-1414N can perform single-precision (32-bit) and half-precision (16-bit) floating point operations, while the DPFPUs 1415A-1415N perform double precision (64-bit) floating point operations. The ALUs 1416A-1416N can perform variable precision integer operations at 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit precision, and can be configured for mixed precision operations. The MPUs 1417A-1417N can also be configured for mixed precision matrix operations, including half-precision floating point and 8-bit integer operations. The MPUs 1417-1417N can perform a variety of matrix operations to accelerate machine learning application frameworks, including enabling support for accelerated general matrix to matrix multiplication (GEMM). The AFUs 1412A-1412N can perform additional logic operations not supported by the floating-point or integer units, including trigonometric operations (e.g., Sine, Cosine, etc.).

As shown in FIG. 14B, a general-purpose processing unit (GPGPU) 1430 can be configured to enable highly-parallel compute operations to be performed by an array of graphics processing units. Additionally, the GPGPU 1430 can be linked directly to other instances of the GPGPU to create a multi-GPU cluster to improve training speed for particularly deep neural networks. The GPGPU 1430 includes a host interface 1432 to enable a connection with a host processor. In one embodiment the host interface 1432 is a PCI Express interface. However, the host interface can also be a vendor specific communications interface or communications fabric. The GPGPU 1430 receives commands from the host processor and uses a global scheduler 1434 to distribute execution threads associated with those commands to a set of compute clusters 1436A-1436H. The compute clusters 1436A-1436H share a cache memory 1438. The cache memory 1438 can serve as a higher-level cache for cache memories within the compute clusters 1436A-1436H.

The GPGPU 1430 includes memory 1434A-1434B coupled with the compute clusters 1436A-1436H via a set of memory controllers 1442A-1442B. In various embodiments, the memory 1434A-1434B can include various types of memory devices including dynamic random access memory (DRAM) or graphics random access memory, such as synchronous graphics random access memory (SGRAM), including graphics double data rate (GDDR) memory.

In one embodiment the compute clusters 1436A-1436H each include a set of graphics cores, such as the graphics core 1400 of FIG. 14A, which can include multiple types of integer and floating point logic units that can perform computational operations at a range of precisions including suited for machine learning computations. For example and in one embodiment at least a subset of the floating point units in each of the compute clusters 1436A-1436H can be configured to perform 16-bit or 32-bit floating point operations, while a different subset of the floating point units can be configured to perform 64-bit floating point operations.

Multiple instances of the GPGPU 1430 can be configured to operate as a compute cluster. The communication mechanism used by the compute cluster for synchronization and data exchange varies across embodiments. In one embodiment the multiple instances of the GPGPU 1430 communicate over the host interface 1432. In one embodiment the GPGPU 1430 includes an I/O hub 1439 that couples the GPGPU 1430 with a GPU link 1440 that enables a direct connection to other instances of the GPGPU. In one embodiment the GPU link 1440 is coupled to a dedicated GPU-to-GPU bridge that enables communication and synchronization between multiple instances of the GPGPU 1430. In one embodiment the GPU link 1440 couples with a high speed interconnect to transmit and receive data to other GPGPUs or parallel processors. In one embodiment the multiple instances of the GPGPU 1430 are located in separate data processing systems and communicate via a network device that is accessible via the host interface 1432. In one embodiment the GPU link 1440 can be configured to enable a connection to a host processor in addition to or as an alternative to the host interface 1432.

While the illustrated configuration of the GPGPU 1430 can be configured to train neural networks, one embodiment provides alternate configuration of the GPGPU 1430 that can be configured for deployment within a high performance or low power inferencing platform. In an inferencing configuration the GPGPU 1430 includes fewer of the compute clusters 1436A-1436H relative to the training configuration. Additionally, the memory technology associated with the memory 1434A-1434B may differ between inferencing and training configurations, with higher bandwidth memory technologies devoted to training configurations. In one embodiment the inferencing configuration of the GPGPU 1430 can support inferencing specific instructions. For example, an inferencing configuration can provide support for one or more 8-bit integer dot product instructions, which are commonly used during inferencing operations for deployed neural networks.

Immersive Video Overview

FIG. 15A illustrates multiple forms of immersive video. Immersive video can be presented in multiple forms depending on the degrees of freedom available to a viewer. Degrees of freedom refers to the number of different directions that an object can move in three-dimensional (3D) space. Immersive video can be viewed via a head mounted display that includes tracking for position and orientation. Example forms of immersive video include 3DoF 1502, 3DoF Plus 1504, and full 6DoF 1506. In addition to immersive video in full 6DoF 1506, 6DOF immersive video includes omni-directional 6DoF 1507, and windowed 6DoF 1508.

For video in 3DoF 1502 (e.g., 360-degree video), a viewer can change orientation (e.g., yaw, pitch, roll) but not position. For video in 3DoF Plus 1504, a viewer can change orientation and make small change to changes to position. For video in 6DoF 1506, a viewer can change orientation and change position. More limited forms of 6DoF video are also available. Video in omni-directional 6DoF 1507 enables a viewer being able to take multiple steps in the virtual scene. Video in windowed 6DoF 1508 allows a viewer to change orientation and position, but the viewers is constrained to a limited view area. Increasing the available degrees of freedom in an immersive video generally includes increasing the amount and complexity of data involved in video generation, encode, decode, and playback.

FIG. 15B illustrates image projection and texture planes for immersive video. A 3D view 1510 of video content can be generated using data from multiple cameras. Multiple projection planes 1512 can be used to generate geometry data for video content. Multiple texture planes 1514 can be derived for the projection planes 1512 used to generate the geometry data. The texture planes 1514 can be applied to 3D models that are pre-generated or generated based on a point cloud derived from video data. The multiple projection planes 1512 can be used to generate multiple two-dimensional (2D) projections, each projection associated with a projection plane.

FIG. 16 illustrates a client-server system by which immersive video content can be generated and encoded by a server 1620 infrastructure for transmission to one or more client 1630 devices. The client 1630 devices can then decompress and render the immersive video content. In one embodiment, one or more server 1620 devices can include inputs from one or more optical cameras 1601 having depth sensors 1602. Parallel compute 1604 resources can decompose the video and depth data into point clouds 1605 and/or texture triangles 1606. Data to generate textured triangles 1606 can also be provided by pre-generated 3D models 1603 of a scene. The point clouds 1605 and/or textured triangles 1606 can be compressed for transmission to one or more client devices, which can locally render the content. In one embodiment, a variety of compression units 1607, 1608, using a variety of compression algorithms, can compressed generated content for transmission over a delivery medium from the server 1620 to one or more client 1630 devices. Decompression units 1609, 1610 on the client 1630 devices can decompress and decode incoming bitstreams into video/texture and geometry data. For example, decompression unit 1609 can decode compressed point cloud data and provide the decompressed point cloud data to a viewpoint interpolation unit 1611. The interpolated viewpoint data can be used to generate bitmap data 1613. The decompressed point cloud data can be provided to a geometry reconstruction unit 1612 to reconstruct geometry data for a scene. The reconstructed geometry data can be textured by decoded texture data (textured triangles 1614) to generate a 3D rendering 1616 for viewing by the client 1630.

FIG. 17A-17B illustrate systems 1700, 1710 for encoding and decoding 3DoF Plus content. System 1700 can be implemented by hardware and software of a server 1620 infrastructure, for example, as in FIG. 16. System 1710 can be implemented by hardware and software of a client 1630 as in FIG. 16.

As shown in FIG. 17A, a system 1700 can be used to encode video data 1702 for a base view 1701 and video data 1705A-1705C for additional views 1704. Multiple cameras can provide input data including video data and depth data, where each frame of video data can be converted into a texture. A set of reprojection 1706 and occlusion detection 1707 units can operate on received video data and output processed data to patch formation 1708 units. Patches formed by the patch formation 1708 units can be provided to a patch packing 1709 unit. Video data 1702 for the base view 1701 can be encoded, for example, via a high efficiency video coding (HEVC) encoder 1703A. A variant of the HEVC encoder 1703A can also be used to encode patch video data output from the patch packing 1709 unit. Metadata to reconstruct video from the encoded patches can be encoded by a metadata encode 1703B unit. Multiple encoded video and metadata streams can then be transmitted to a client device for viewing.

As shown in FIG. 17B, multiple streams of video data can be received, decoded, and reconstructed into immersive video by system 1710. The multiple streams of video includes a stream for the base video, along with a stream containing packed data for the additional views. Encoded metadata is also received. The multiple video streams can be decoded, in one embodiment, via an HEVC 1713A decoder. Metadata can be decoded via a metadata 1713B decoder. The decoded metadata is then used to unpack the decoded additional views via patch un-packing 1719 logic. Decoded texture and depth data (video 0 1712, video 1-3 1714A-1715C) of the base view 1701 and the additional views 1704 are reconstructed by view generation logic 1718 on the client (e.g., client 1630 as in FIG. 16). The decoded video 1712, 1715A-1715C can be provided as texture and depth data to an intermediate view renderer 1714 that can be used to render intermediate views for a head mounted display 1711. Head mounted display position information 1716 is provided as feedback to the intermediate view renderer 1714, which can render updated views for the displayed viewport presented via the head mounted display 1711.

FIG. 18A-18B illustrate a system for encoding and decoding 6DoF textured geometry data. FIG. 18A shows a 6DoF textured geometry encoding system 1800. FIG. 18B shows a 6DoF textured geometry decoding system 1820. 6DoF textured geometry encoding and decoding can be used to enable a variant of 6DoF immersive video in which video data is applied as a texture to geometry data, allowing new intermediate views to be rendered based on the position and orientation of a head mounted display. Data recorded by multiple video cameras can be combined with 3D models, particularly for static objects.

As shown in FIG. 18A, a 6DoF textured geometry encoding system 1800 can receive video data 1802 for a base view and video data 1805A-1805C for additional views. The video data 1802, 1805A-1805C includes texture and depth data that can be processed by a reprojection and occlusion detection unit 1806. Output from the reprojection and occlusion detection unit 1806 can be provided to a patch decomposition unit 1807 and a geometry image generator 1808. Output from the patch decomposition unit 1807 is provided to a patch packing unit 1809 and an auxiliary patch information compressor 1813. The auxiliary patch information (patch-info) provides information used to reconstruct patches of video texture and depth data. The patch packing unit 1809 outputs packed patch data to the geometry image generator 1808, a texture image generator 1810, an attribute image generator 1811, and an occupancy map compressor 1812.

The geometry image generator 1808, texture image generator 1810, and attribute image generator 1811 output data to a video compressor 1814. The geometry image generator 1808 can receive input from the reprojection and occlusion detection unit 1806, patch decomposition unit 1807, and patch packing unit 1809 and generates geometry image data. The texture image generator 1810 can receive packed patch data from the patch packing unit 1809 and video texture and depth data from the reprojection and occlusion detection unit 1806. The attribute image generator 1811 generates an attribute image from video texture and depth data received from the reprojection and occlusion detection unit 1806 and patched patch data received from the patch packing unit 1809.

An occupancy map can be generated by an occupancy map compressor 1812 based on packed patch data output from the patch packing unit 1809. Auxiliary patch information can be generated by the auxiliary patch information compressor 1813. Compressed occupancy map and auxiliary patch information data can be multiplexed into a compressed bitstream 1816 by a multiplexer 1815 along with compressed and/or encoded video data output from the video compressor 1814. The compressed video data output from the video compressor 1814 includes compressed geometry image data, texture image data, and attribute image data. The compressed bitstream 1816 can be stored or provided to a client device for decompression and viewing.

As shown in FIG. 18B, a 6DoF textured geometry decoding system 1820 can be used to decode 6DoF content generated using the encoding system 1800 of FIG. 18A. The compressed bitstream 1816 is received and demultiplexed by a demultiplexer 1835 into multiple video decode streams, an occupancy map, and auxiliary patch information. The multiple video streams are decoded/decompressed by video decoders 1834A-1834B. Occupancy map data is decoded/decompressed by an occupancy map decoder 1832. The decoded video data and occupancy map data are output by the video decoders 1834A-1834B and the occupancy map decoder 1832 to an unpacking unit 1829. The unpacking unit unpacks video patch data that is packed by the patch packing unit 1809 of FIG. 18A. Auxiliary patch information from the auxiliary patch-info decoder 1833 is provided to an occlusion filling unit 1826, which can be used to fill in patches from occluded portions of an object that may be missing from a particular view of the video data. Respective video streams 1822, 1825A-1825C having texture and depth data are output from the occlusion filling unit 1826 and provided to an intermediate view renderer 1823, which can render a view for display on a head mounted display 1824 based on position and orientation information provided by the head mounted display 1824.

FIG. 19A-19B illustrate a system for encoding and decoding 6DoF point cloud data. FIG. 19A illustrates a 6DoF point cloud encoding system 1900. FIG. 19B illustrates a 6DoF point cloud decoding system 1920. 6DoF video can be represented using point clouds, where for a point cloud video sequence, at regular time intervals (e.g., 60 Hz) there is a new point cloud frame. Each point in the point cloud data frame is represented by six parameters: (X, Y, Z) geometry position and (R, G, B or Y, U, V) texture data. In the encoding system 1900 of FIG. 19A, a point cloud frame is projected onto several two-dimensional (2D) planes, each 2D plane corresponding to a projection angle. The projection planes can be similar to the projection planes 1512 of FIG. 15B. In some implementations, six projection angles are used in the PCC standard test model, with the projection angles corresponding to angles pointing to the centers of six faces of a rectangular solid that bound the object represented by the point cloud data. While six projection angles are described, other number of angles could possibly be used in different implementations.

Texture and depth 2D image patch representations are formed at each projection angle. The 2D patch image representations for a projection angle can be created by projecting only those points for which a projection angle has the closest normal. In other words, the 2D patch image representation is taken for the points that maximize the dot product of the point normal and the plane normal. Texture patches from the separate projections are combined into a single texture image, which is referred to as the geometry image. Metadata to represent the patches and how they were packed into a frame are described in the occupancy map and auxiliary patch info. The occupancy map metadata includes an indication of which image sample positions are empty (e.g., do not contain corresponding point cloud information). The auxiliary patch info indicates the projection plane to which a patch belongs and can be used to determine a projection plane associated with a given sample position. The texture images and depth images are encoded using a 2D conventional video encoder, such as a high efficiency video coding (HEVC) encoder. The metadata can be separately compressed using metadata encoding logic. In the test model decoder, the texture images and depth images are decoded using an HEVC video decoder. A point cloud is reconstructed, using the decoded texture and depth images, along with the occupancy map and auxiliary patch info metadata.

As shown in FIG. 19A, an input frame of point cloud data can be decomposed into patch data. The point cloud data and decomposed patch data can be encoded in a similar manner as video texture and depth data in FIG. 18A. Input data including a point cloud frame 1906 can be provided to a patch decomposition unit 1907. The input point cloud data and decomposed patches thereof can be processed by a packing unit 1909, geometry image generator 1908, texture image generator 1910, attribute image generator 1911, occupancy map compressor 1912, and auxiliary patch information compressor 1913 using techniques similar to the processing of texture depth and video data output by the reprojection and occlusion detection unit 1806 and patch decomposition unit 1807 of FIG. 18A. A video compressor 1914 can encode and/or compress geometry image, texture image, and attribute image data. The compressed and/or encoded video data from the video compressor 1914 can be multiplexed by a multiplexer 1915 with occupancy map and auxiliary patch information data into a compressed bitstream 1916, which can be stored or transmitted for display.

The compressed bitstream output by the system 1900 of FIG. 19A can be decoded by the point cloud decoding system 1920 shown in FIG. 19B. As shown in FIG. 19B, a compressed bitstream 1916 can be demultiplexed into multiple encoded/compressed video streams, occupancy map data, and auxiliary patch information. The video streams can be decoded/decompressed by a multi-stream video decoder 1934, which can output texture and geometry data. Occupancy map and auxiliary patch information can be decompressed/decoded by an occupancy map decoder 1932 and an auxiliary patch information decoder 1933.

Geometry reconstruction, smoothing, and texture reconstruction can then be performed to reconstruct the point cloud data provided to the 6DoF point cloud encoding system 1900 of FIG. 19A. A geometry reconstruction unit 1936 can reconstruct geometry information based on geometry data decoded from a video stream of the multi-stream video decoder 1934, as well as output of the occupancy map decoder 1932 and auxiliary patch information decoder 1933. Reconstructed geometry data can be smoothed by a smoothing unit 1937. Smoothed geometry and texture image data decoded from a video stream output by the multi-stream video decoder 1934 is provided to a texture reconstruction unit 1938. The texture reconstruction unit 1938 can output a reconstructed point cloud 1939, which is a variant of the input point cloud frame 1926 provided to the 6DoF point cloud encoding system 1900 of FIG. 19A.

FIG. 20 illustrates a computing device 2000 employing a normals processing mechanism 2010 according to one embodiment. Computing device 2000 (e.g., server, smart wearable devices, virtual reality (VR) devices, head-mounted display (HMDs), mobile computers, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, laptop computers, desktop computers, server computers, etc.) may be the same as processing system 100 of FIG. 1 and accordingly, for brevity, clarity, and ease of understanding, many of the details stated above with reference to FIGS. 1-14 are not further discussed or repeated hereafter. As illustrated, in one embodiment, computing device 2000 is shown as hosting a surface normals (or normals) processing mechanism 2010.

As illustrated in one embodiment, normals processing mechanism 2010 may be hosted by or part of firmware of graphics processing unit (“GPU” or “graphics processor”) 2014. In other embodiments, normals processing mechanism 2010 may be hosted by or part of firmware of central processing unit (“CPU” or “application processor”) 2012. For brevity, clarity, and ease of understanding, throughout the rest of this document, normals processing mechanism 2010 may be discussed as part of GPU 2014; however, embodiments are not limited as such.

In yet another embodiment, normals processing mechanism 2010 may be hosted as software or firmware logic by operating system 2006. In still another embodiment, normals processing mechanism 2010 may be hosted by graphics driver 2016. In yet a further embodiment, normals processing mechanism 2010 may be partially and simultaneously hosted by multiple components of computing device 2000, such as one or more of graphics driver 2016, GPU 2014, GPU firmware, CPU 2012, CPU firmware, operating system 2006, and/or the like. It is contemplated that normals processing mechanism 2010 or one or more of its components may be implemented as hardware, software, and/or firmware.

Computing device 2000 may include any number and type of communication devices, such as large computing systems, such as server computers, desktop computers, etc., and may further include set-top boxes (e.g., Internet-based cable television set-top boxes, etc.), global positioning system (GPS)-based devices, etc. Computing device 2000 may include mobile computing devices serving as communication devices, such as cellular phones including smartphones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), tablet computers, laptop computers, e-readers, smart televisions, television platforms, wearable devices (e.g., glasses, watches, bracelets, smartcards, jewelry, clothing items, etc.), media players, etc. For example, in one embodiment, computing device 2000 may include a mobile computing device employing a computer platform hosting an integrated circuit (“IC”), such as system on a chip (“SoC” or “SOC”), integrating various hardware and/or software components of computing device 2000 on a single chip.

As illustrated, in one embodiment, computing device 2000 may include any number and type of hardware and/or software components, such as (without limitation) GPU 2014, graphics driver (also referred to as “GPU driver”, “graphics driver logic”, “driver logic”, user-mode driver (UMD), UMD, user-mode driver framework (UMDF), UMDF, or simply “driver”) 2016, CPU 2012, memory 2008, network devices, drivers, or the like, as well as input/output (I/O) sources 2004, such as touchscreens, touch panels, touch pads, virtual or regular keyboards, virtual or regular mice, ports, connectors, etc.

Computing device 2000 may include operating system (OS) 2006 serving as an interface between hardware and/or physical resources of the computer device 2000 and a user. It is contemplated that CPU 2012 may include one or more processors, while GPU 2014 may include one or more graphics processors.

It is to be noted that terms like “node”, “computing node”, “server”, “server device”, “cloud computer”, “cloud server”, “cloud server computer”, “machine”, “host machine”, “device”, “computing device”, “computer”, “computing system”, and the like, may be used interchangeably throughout this document. It is to be further noted that terms like “application”, “software application”, “program”, “software program”, “package”, “software package”, and the like, may be used interchangeably throughout this document. Also, terms like “job”, “input”, “request”, “message”, and the like, may be used interchangeably throughout this document.

Further, terms like “logic”, “component”, “module”, “engine”, “model”, “unit” and the like, may be referenced interchangeably and include, by way of example, software, hardware, and/or any combination of software and hardware, such as firmware. Further, any use of a particular brand, word, term, phrase, name, and/or acronym, should not be read to limit embodiments to software or devices that carry that label in products or in literature external to this document.

It is contemplated and as further described with reference to FIGS. 1-14, some processes of the graphics pipeline as described above are implemented in software, while the rest are implemented in hardware. A graphics pipeline may be implemented in a graphics coprocessor design, where CPU 2012 is designed to work with GPU 2014 which may be included in or co-located with CPU 2012. In one embodiment, GPU 2014 may employ any number and type of conventional software and hardware logic to perform the conventional functions relating to graphics rendering as well as novel software and hardware logic to execute any number and type of instructions.

As aforementioned, memory 2008 may include a random access memory (RAM) comprising application database having object information. A memory controller hub, may access data in the RAM and forward it to GPU 2014 for graphics pipeline processing. RAM may include double data rate RAM (DDR RAM), extended data output RAM (EDO RAM), etc. CPU 2012 interacts with a hardware graphics pipeline to share graphics pipelining functionality.

Processed data is stored in a buffer in the hardware graphics pipeline, and state information is stored in memory 2008. The resulting image is then transferred to I/O sources 2004, such as a display component for displaying of the image. It is contemplated that the display device may be of various types, such as Cathode Ray Tube (CRT), Thin Film Transistor (TFT), Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) array, etc., to display information to a user.

Memory 2008 may comprise a pre-allocated region of a buffer (e.g., frame buffer); however, it should be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that the embodiments are not so limited, and that any memory accessible to the lower graphics pipeline may be used. Computing device 2000 may further include platform controller hub (PCH) 130 as referenced in FIG. 1, as one or more I/O sources 2004, etc.

CPU 2012 may include one or more processors to execute instructions in order to perform whatever software routines the computing system implements. The instructions frequently involve some sort of operation performed upon data. Both data and instructions may be stored in system memory 2008 and any associated cache. Cache is typically designed to have shorter latency times than system memory 2008; for example, cache might be integrated onto the same silicon chip(s) as the processor(s) and/or constructed with faster static RAM (SRAM) cells whilst the system memory 2008 might be constructed with slower dynamic RAM (DRAM) cells. By tending to store more frequently used instructions and data in the cache as opposed to the system memory 2008, the overall performance efficiency of computing device 2000 improves. It is contemplated that in some embodiments, GPU 2014 may exist as part of CPU 2012 (such as part of a physical CPU package) in which case, memory 2008 may be shared by CPU 2012 and GPU 2014 or kept separated.

System memory 2008 may be made available to other components within the computing device 2000. For example, any data (e.g., input graphics data) received from various interfaces to the computing device 2000 (e.g., keyboard and mouse, printer port, Local Area Network (LAN) port, modem port, etc.) or retrieved from an internal storage element of the computer device 2000 (e.g., hard disk drive) are often temporarily queued into system memory 2008 prior to their being operated upon by the one or more processor(s) in the implementation of a software program. Similarly, data that a software program determines should be sent from the computing device 2000 to an outside entity through one of the computing system interfaces, or stored into an internal storage element, is often temporarily queued in system memory 2008 prior to its being transmitted or stored.

Further, for example, a PCH may be used for ensuring that such data is properly passed between the system memory 2008 and its appropriate corresponding computing system interface (and internal storage device if the computing system is so designed) and may have bi-directional point-to-point links between itself and the observed I/O sources/devices 2004. Similarly, an MCH may be used for managing the various contending requests for system memory 2008 accesses amongst CPU 2012 and GPU 2014, interfaces and internal storage elements that may proximately arise in time with respect to one another.

I/O sources 2004 may include one or more I/O devices that are implemented for transferring data to and/or from computing device 2000 (e.g., a networking adapter); or, for a large scale non-volatile storage within computing device 2000 (e.g., hard disk drive). User input device, including alphanumeric and other keys, may be used to communicate information and command selections to GPU 2014. Another type of user input device is cursor control, such as a mouse, a trackball, a touchscreen, a touchpad, or cursor direction keys to communicate direction information and command selections to GPU 2014 and to control cursor movement on the display device. Camera and microphone arrays of computer device 2000 may be employed to observe gestures, record audio and video and to receive and transmit visual and audio commands.

According to one embodiment, computing device 2000 is coupled to one or more client computing devices (or clients) 2040 via one or more networks 2045. In a further embodiment, client 2040 also includes normals processing mechanism. In this embodiment, normals processing mechanism 2010 is implemented at computing device 2000 (or server) to process point cloud data and encode the data for transmission to a client 2040 where the data is processed by normals processing mechanism 2010 for rendering at a display device 2042. Accordingly, server 2000 and client 2040 may further include network interface(s) to provide access to a network, such as a LAN, a wide area network (WAN), a metropolitan area network (MAN), a personal area network (PAN), Bluetooth, a cloud network, a mobile network (e.g., 3rd Generation (3G), 4th Generation (4G), etc.), an intranet, the Internet, etc. Network interface(s) may include, for example, a wireless network interface having antenna, which may represent one or more antenna(e). Network interface(s) may also include, for example, a wired network interface to communicate with remote devices via network cable, which may be, for example, an Ethernet cable, a coaxial cable, a fiber optic cable, a serial cable, or a parallel cable.

Network interface(s) may provide access to a LAN, for example, by conforming to IEEE 802.11b and/or IEEE 802.11g standards, and/or the wireless network interface may provide access to a personal area network, for example, by conforming to Bluetooth standards. Other wireless network interfaces and/or protocols, including previous and subsequent versions of the standards, may also be supported. In addition to, or instead of, communication via the wireless LAN standards, network interface(s) may provide wireless communication using, for example, Time Division, Multiple Access (TDMA) protocols, Global Systems for Mobile Communications (GSM) protocols, Code Division, Multiple Access (CDMA) protocols, and/or any other type of wireless communications protocols.

Network interface(s) may include one or more communication interfaces, such as a modem, a network interface card, or other well-known interface devices, such as those used for coupling to the Ethernet, token ring, or other types of physical wired or wireless attachments for purposes of providing a communication link to support a LAN or a WAN, for example. In this manner, the computer system may also be coupled to a number of peripheral devices, clients, control surfaces, consoles, or servers via a conventional network infrastructure, including an Intranet or the Internet, for example.

It is to be appreciated that a lesser or more equipped system than the example described above may be preferred for certain implementations. Therefore, the configuration of computing device 2000 may vary from implementation to implementation depending upon numerous factors, such as price constraints, performance requirements, technological improvements, or other circumstances. Examples of the electronic device or computer system 2000 may include (without limitation) a mobile device, a personal digital assistant, a mobile computing device, a smartphone, a cellular telephone, a handset, a one-way pager, a two-way pager, a messaging device, a computer, a personal computer (PC), a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a notebook computer, a handheld computer, a tablet computer, a server, a server array or server farm, a web server, a network server, an Internet server, a work station, a mini-computer, a main frame computer, a supercomputer, a network appliance, a web appliance, a distributed computing system, multiprocessor systems, processor-based systems, consumer electronics, programmable consumer electronics, television, digital television, set top box, wireless access point, base station, subscriber station, mobile subscriber center, radio network controller, router, hub, gateway, bridge, switch, machine, or combinations thereof.

Embodiments may be implemented as any or a combination of: one or more microchips or integrated circuits interconnected using a parentboard, hardwired logic, software stored by a memory device and executed by a microprocessor, firmware, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), and/or a field programmable gate array (FPGA). The term “logic” may include, by way of example, software or hardware and/or combinations of software and hardware.

Embodiments may be provided, for example, as a computer program product which may include one or more machine-readable media having stored thereon machine-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more machines such as a computer, network of computers, or other electronic devices, may result in the one or more machines carrying out operations in accordance with embodiments described herein. A machine-readable medium may include, but is not limited to, floppy diskettes, optical disks, CD-ROMs (Compact Disc-Read Only Memories), and magneto-optical disks, ROMs, RAMs, EPROMs (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memories), EEPROMs (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memories), magnetic or optical cards, flash memory, or other type of media/machine-readable medium suitable for storing machine-executable instructions.

Moreover, embodiments may be downloaded as a computer program product, wherein the program may be transferred from a remote computer (e.g., a server) to a requesting computer (e.g., a client) by way of one or more data signals embodied in and/or modulated by a carrier wave or other propagation medium via a communication link (e.g., a modem and/or network connection).

Point clouds are a collection of geometric positions in space including a color corresponding to that point in space. Rendering a point cloud may often be challenging since stored points have no linkage. Thus, there is no definitive way to determine whether two adjacent points are part of the same object, or belong to two different objects. As discussed above, existing solutions implement surface normals for lighting calculations in point clouds. However in such solutions the normals are used only for, and thus by nature are limited in offering geometric reconstructions and color modeling.

FIGS. 21A-21C illustrate a captured scene of two fingers. For simplicity, FIGS. 21A-C illustrate 2D cross sections, rather than a 3D point cloud. As shown in FIG. 21A, a camera (Camera A) samples the scene and selects points (and colors) from the surface of the fingers. However, FIG. 21B shows that the resulting point cloud has only a collection of dissociated points in space, with no geometry. Thus, a guess of the missing geometry must be performed to render the points. A conventional rendering method is to assume that any points near to each other are part of the same object, and draw a surface accordingly. However, this method often results in separate objects as being rendered as parts of the same object. For instance, FIG. 21C the gap between the two fingers being filled with a surface, resulting in the fingers of the hand having a webbed appearance.

According to one embodiment, normals processing mechanism 2010 explicitly codes surface normals with point cloud geometry to provide for accurate geometric reconstructions of objects during rendering. In such an embodiment, normals processing mechanism 2010 may implement the surface normals to perform subjective artifact reduction while rendering the objects.

FIG. 22A is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of a method 2200 for using surface normals in point cloud data. Method 2200 may be performed by processing logic that may comprise hardware (e.g., circuitry, dedicated logic, programmable logic, etc.), software (such as instructions run on a processing device), or a combination thereof. The processes of method 2200 are illustrated in linear sequences for brevity and clarity in presentation; however, it is contemplated that any number of them can be performed in parallel, asynchronously, or in different orders. Further, for brevity, clarity, and ease of understanding, many of the components and processes described with respect to FIGS. 1-21 may not be repeated or discussed hereafter.

Method 2200 begins at processing block 2210 where point cloud data is received. At processing block 2220, the point cloud data is encoded. In one embodiment, the point cloud data is encoded with the original surface normals at the time the point cloud is captured. Thus, in addition to a position in space, a vector perpendicular to each point on the original object's surface is encoded to provide directions associated with each object. FIG. 23A illustrates one embodiment of surface normals included within the point cloud. The point cloud encoding will be discussed in more detail below. At processing block 2220, the encoded point cloud data is transmitted (e.g., from a host computing system 2000).

FIG. 22B is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of a method 2250 for rendering point cloud data using surface normals. Method 2250 may be performed by processing logic that may comprise hardware (e.g., circuitry, dedicated logic, programmable logic, etc.), software (such as instructions run on a processing device), or a combination thereof. The processes of method 2250 are illustrated in linear sequences for brevity and clarity in presentation; however, it is contemplated that any number of them can be performed in parallel, asynchronously, or in different orders. Further, for brevity, clarity, and ease of understanding, many of the components and processes described with respect to FIGS. 1-22 may not be repeated or discussed hereafter.

Method 2250 begins at processing block 2260 where the encoded point cloud data is received (e.g., at a host client 2040). At processing block 2270, the encoded point cloud data is decoded. At processing block 2280, the point cloud data objects are rendered using the surface normal data. Thus, the perpendicular vectors associated with object points are implemented to provide surface directions for each object during rendering. Accordingly, implementation of the surface normals provides enhanced reconstruction of the original geometry of objects in the point cloud data that has been discarded. FIG. 23B illustrates one embodiment of a reconstruction of the objects using the surface normals. As shown in FIG. 23B, the normals pointing towards each other in the center of the picture are a good indicator that thee two points are not part of the same object. Thus, the rendering reconstructs a geometry much closer to the original object, as opposed to the rendering shown in FIG. 21C.

As discussed above, normals processing mechanism 2010 encodes normals data within the video bit stream to assist in the processing of the bit stream data for rendering at a client. In one embodiment, normals processing mechanism 2010 uses high level syntax to encode the video bit stream indicate the normals data is included within the bit stream. FIGS. 24A and 24B illustrate embodiments of normals processing mechanism 2010 implemented to perform subjective artifact reduction using normals.

As shown in FIG. 24A, normals processing mechanism 2010 includes an encoder 2400 to encode the video bit stream. Encoder 2400 includes a texture encoder 2402 to encode texture data, a depth encoder 2104 to encode depth data and a normals encoder 2406 to encode normals data. In one embodiment, encoder 2400 performs HEVC coding on the video bit stream data. In such an embodiment, normals encoder 2406 uses the high level syntax to indicate that the video bit stream includes normal data. For instance, normals encoder 2106 may encode the 3-dimensional (X, Y, Z) normals data within 3 color components (e.g., Red, Green, Blue (RGB), or YUV) having a fixed bit depth (e.g., 8, 10, 12, 16). For YUV, 4:4:4 format should be used, in which all of Y, U, and V components have the same resolution.

In such an embodiment, the coded normals are used at the decoder to apply lighting models to aid in subjective artifact reduction. In one embodiment, encoder 2400 uses HEVC video usability information (VUI) metadata to indicate that the data is normals data rather than color video data. VUI provides additional information that may be inserted into a bitstream to enhance the use of the video for various purposes. Reserved values of the video format syntax element in the VUI could be used to indicate that the coded video represents normals data. In other embodiments, HEVC video parameter set (VPS) data may be implemented to perform the encoding of the normals. In particular, an additional value of AuxId in the VPS could be defined to indicate that the layer represents normals data.

FIG. 24B illustrates one embodiment of a normals processing mechanism 2010 including a decoder 2450 to decode the video bit stream (e.g., at a client 2040). Decoder 2450 includes a texture decoder 2452 to decode the texture data, a depth decoder 2154 to decode the depth data and a normals decoder 2456 to decode the normals data. In one embodiment, normals decoder 2456 examines the metadata within the video bit stream data and decodes the normals data from the color component data upon an indication in the metadata that the color component data includes the normals data.

In one embodiment, normals processing mechanism 2010 may include 2D to 3D conversion logic 2157 to transform the video bit stream from 2D (or “flat”) to 3D form (e.g., stereo. Thus, conversion logic 2157 creates imagery for each eye from one 2D image. Normals processing mechanism 2010 also includes post processing logic 2159 to perform subjective artifact reduction on the video bit stream using the decoded normals data. During post processing, logic 2459 uses the normals data to identify separate objects in the video bit stream based on the perpendicular surface vectors. As discussed above, normals can be associated with each object such that one or more normals are associated with each finger to indicate that each finger is a separate object. Thus, the fingers do not appear webbed when the hand is rendered.

In a further embodiment, normals processing mechanism 2010 provides approximation for surface normals from a depth map. In such an embodiment, normals processing mechanism 2010 extracts surface normals for approximations directly from a depth map, which precludes having to transmit the normals to a client. In one embodiment, the point cloud includes depth data implemented to generate a depth map. In this embodiment, a depth map (Z(i,j)) refers to a point cloud on a 2.5D surface.

FIG. 25 illustrates one embodiment of a flow for approximating surface normals from a depth map. At processing block 2510, a depth map is uploaded into the device. At processing block 2512, points in the depth map are separated into clouds. At processing block 2514, a Sobel operator (or filter) is applied for the vertical direction of the depth map. At processing block 2516, a Sobel operator is applied for the horizontal direction. At processing block 2520, a normal approximation is calculated for each point cloud.

FIG. 26 is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of a method 2600 for approximating surface normals. Method 2600 may be performed by processing logic that may comprise hardware (e.g., circuitry, dedicated logic, programmable logic, etc.), software (such as instructions run on a processing device), or a combination thereof. The processes of method 2600 are illustrated in linear sequences for brevity and clarity in presentation; however, it is contemplated that any number of them can be performed in parallel, asynchronously, or in different orders. Further, for brevity, clarity, and ease of understanding, many of the components and processes described with respect to FIGS. 1-25 may not be repeated or discussed hereafter.

Method 2600 begins at processing block 2610, where a differentiation vector is determined. A differentiation vector between two horizontal pixels and vertical pixels in the surface is provided as:

(δpix,0,δ_(x) z) and (0,δpix,δ _(y) z)

where δ_(x)z=δ_(x)Z_(i,j)=Z_(i+1,j)−Z_(i,j); δ_(y)z=δ_(y)Z_(i,j)=Z_(i,j+1)−Z_(i,j); and δpix is the Ground Sample Distance (GSD) of a pixel.

Provided that the distance to the point cloud center of mass (h) and focal length in pixels, the GSD for a specific cloud delta can be calculated as h/f, at processing block 2620. In one embodiment, GSD (e.g., in a digital image is the distance between measured pixel centers. For example, in an image with a one-meter GSD, adjacent pixels image locations are one meter apart on the ground.

At processing block 2630, a real (e.g., world coordinate) horizontal distance between two neighboring pixels as the GSD is approximated to obtain a true vector between depth map points. At processing block 2640, a normal approximation is calculated. In one embodiment, a cross product between the horizontal and vertical vectors yields the normal approximation:

(δpix,0,δ_(x) z)=(0,δpix,δ _(y) z)=(−δ_(x) Z−δ _(y) zδpix)

The above-described approximation may be calculated for an entire depth map to spare the bandwidth of having to transmit surface normals from computing device 2000 to client 2040.

A light estimation mechanism 2011 is also included. A 360° 6DoF video scene may include multiple directional light sources that contribute to specular highlights and reflections on several surfaces in the scene, in addition to ambient light. Some approaches for enabling 6 DoF video for better immersion require interpolation whenever the virtual camera location does not coincide with the physical (or capture) camera location. However, it is useful to understand lighting sources present in the scene in order to better blend the interpolated scenes.

According to one embodiment, light estimation mechanism 2011 estimates relative location and intensity of light sources in a 360° 6 DoF. FIG. 27 is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of a method 2700 for determining light estimations. Method 2700 may be performed by processing logic that may comprise hardware (e.g., circuitry, dedicated logic, programmable logic, etc.), software (such as instructions run on a processing device), or a combination thereof. The processes of method 2700 are illustrated in linear sequences for brevity and clarity in presentation; however, it is contemplated that any number of them can be performed in parallel, asynchronously, or in different orders. Further, for brevity, clarity, and ease of understanding, many of the components and processes described with respect to FIGS. 1-26 may not be repeated or discussed hereafter.

Method 2700 begins at processing block 2710, where a 360° 6DoF scene is received. At processing block 2722, point clouds are generated from the scene. At processing block 2724, surface normals are computed. In one embodiment, the surface normals may be computed by estimating tangent planes. At processing block 2726, object boundaries are detected (e.g., via a segmentation technique). In such an embodiment, the point clouds are grouped based on an assumption that an object has relatively uniform material characteristics.

At processing block 2730, light intensity peaks are determined for each object. At processing block 2740, light estimations are performed for each object based on the light intensity peaks. According to one embodiment, an object is determined to reflect only ambient light upon a determination that its light intensity peaks are within a predetermined threshold difference from an average light intensity peak. However, upon a determination that an intensity peak is higher than the predetermined threshold difference, the normals at those locations may be used to estimate light position. At processing block 2750, the individual light sources are mapped to the 360° scene sphere once estimated. In further embodiment, the light sources may be cross-correlated to combine duplicates and ranked in order of relative intensity.

Some embodiments pertain to Example 1 that includes an apparatus to facilitate processing video bit stream data, comprising one or more processors to encode surface normals data with point cloud geometry data included in the video bit stream data for reconstruction of objects within the video bit stream data based on the surface normals data and a memory communicatively coupled to the one or more processors.

Example 2 includes the subject matter of Example 1, wherein encoding the surface normals data with the point cloud geometry data comprises encoding a vector perpendicular to each point on a surface of an object to provide directions associated with the object.

Example 3 includes the subject matter of Examples 1 and 2, wherein the one or more processors further to encode the surface normals data via a high level syntax to indicate that surface normals data is included within the video bit stream.

Example 4 includes the subject matter of Examples 1-3, wherein the video bit stream is encoded using a High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) coding.

Example 5 includes the subject matter of Examples 1-4, wherein the one or more processors further to encode the surface normals data within HEVC color component data.

Example 6 includes the subject matter of Examples 1-5, wherein metadata indicates that the HEVC color component data includes surface normals data.

Example 7 includes the subject matter of Examples 1-6, wherein the metadata comprises HEVC video usability information (VUI) metadata.

Example 8 includes the subject matter of Examples 1-7, wherein the metadata comprises HEVC video parameter set (VPS) data.

Some embodiments pertain to Example 9 that includes an apparatus to facilitate processing video bit stream data comprising one or more processors to receive surface normals data encoded within point cloud geometry data included in the video bit stream data and reconstruct objects within the video bit stream data based on the surface normals data, and a memory communicatively coupled to the one or more processors.

Example 10 includes the subject matter of Example 9, wherein the normals processing logic reconstructing the objects within the video bit stream data based on the surface normals comprises rendering the object using the directions provided with the vector for each point on the surface of the object.

Example 11 includes the subject matter of Examples 9 and 10, wherein the one or more processors further to decode the surface normals data via a high level syntax to indicate that surface normals data is included within the video bit stream and render the object using the directions provided with the vector for each point on the surface of the object.

Example 12 includes the subject matter of Examples 9-11, wherein the surface normals data is decoded using a High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) coding.

Example 13 includes the subject matter of Examples 9-12, wherein the surface normals data is decoded within HEVC color component data.

Example 14 includes the subject matter of Examples 9-13, wherein metadata indicates that the HEVC color component data includes surface normals data.

Example 15 includes the subject matter of Examples 9-14, wherein the one or more processors further to extract surface normals from a depth map for approximations.

Example 16 includes the subject matter of Examples 9-15, wherein performing the approximations comprises determining a differentiation vector between two horizontal pixels and vertical pixels on a surface, calculating a Ground Sample Distance (GSD) of a pixel and approximating a horizontal distance between two neighboring pixels as the GSD.

Some embodiments pertain to Example 17 that includes a method to facilitate processing video bit stream data, comprising receiving the video bit stream data and encoding surface normals data with point cloud geometry data for reconstruction of objects within the video bit stream data based on the surface normals data.

Example 18 includes the subject matter of Example 17, wherein encoding the surface normals data with the point cloud geometry data comprises encoding a vector perpendicular to each point on a surface of an object to provide directions associated with the object.

Example 19 includes the subject matter of Examples 17 and 18, wherein encoding the surface normals data further comprises encoding the surface normals data via a high level syntax to indicate that surface normals data is included within the video bit stream.

Example 20 includes the subject matter of Examples 17-19, wherein encoding the surface normals data further comprises encoding the surface normals data within color component data.

Example 21 includes the subject matter of Examples 17-20, wherein encoding the surface normals data further comprises encoding metadata to indicate that the HEVC color component data includes surface normals data.

Some embodiments pertain to Example 22 that includes at least one computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon, which when executed by one or more processors, cause the processors to receive surface normals data encoded within point cloud geometry data included in the video bit stream data and reconstruct objects within the video bit stream data based on the surface normals data.

Example 23 includes the subject matter of Example 22, reconstructing the objects within the video bit stream data based on the surface normals comprises rendering the object using the directions provided with the vector for each point on the surface of the object.

Example 24 includes the subject matter of Examples 22 and 23, further comprising decoding the surface normals data via a high level syntax to indicate that surface normals data is included within the video bit stream.

Example 25 includes the subject matter of Examples 22-24, wherein decoding the surface normals data further comprises decoding the surface normals data from color component data included in the video bit stream.

Some embodiments pertain to Example 26 that includes an apparatus to facilitate light estimation, comprising one or more processors to estimate relative location and intensity of light sources in a 360° six degrees of freedom (6 DoF) scene and a memory communicatively coupled to the one or more processors.

Example 27 includes the subject matter of Example 26, wherein estimating relative location and intensity of light sources comprises generating point clouds from the 6 DoF scene, computing surface normals, determining light intensity peaks for each object in the 6 DoF scene and performing light estimations for each object based on the light intensity peaks.

Example 28 includes the subject matter of Examples 26 and 27, wherein the one or more processors further to map light estimations to the 6 DoF scene.

The invention has been described above with reference to specific embodiments. Persons skilled in the art, however, will understand that various modifications and changes may be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims. The foregoing description and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense. 

1. An apparatus to facilitate processing video bit stream data, comprising: one or more processors to encode surface normals data with point cloud geometry data included in the video bit stream data for reconstruction of objects within the video bit stream data based on the surface normals data, wherein the surface normals data is encoded within the point cloud geometry data via one or more color components of color component data and metadata is encoded to indicate that the color component data includes surface normals data; and a memory communicatively coupled to the one or more processors.
 2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein encoding the surface normals data with the point cloud geometry data comprises encoding a vector perpendicular to each point on a surface of an object to provide directions associated with the object.
 3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the one or more processors further to encode the surface normals data via a high level syntax to indicate that surface normals data is included within the video bit stream.
 4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the video bit stream is encoded using a High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) coding.
 5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the one or more processors further to encode the surface normals data within HEVC color component data.
 6. (canceled)
 7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the metadata comprises HEVC video usability information (VUI) metadata.
 8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the metadata comprises HEVC video parameter set (VPS) data.
 9. An apparatus to facilitate processing video bit stream data, comprising: one or more processors to receive surface normals data encoded within point cloud geometry data included in the video bit stream data and reconstruct objects within the video bit stream data based on the surface normals data, wherein the surface normals data is encoded within the point cloud geometry data via one or more color components of color component data and metadata is encoded to indicate that the color component data includes surface normals data; and a memory communicatively coupled to the one more processors.
 10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein reconstructing the objects within the video bit stream data based on the surface normals comprises rendering the object using the directions provided with the vector for each point on the surface of the object.
 11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the one or more processors further to decode the surface normals data via a high level syntax to indicate that surface normals data is included within the video bit stream and render the object using the directions provided with the vector for each point on the surface of the object.
 12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the surface normals data is decoded using a High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) coding.
 13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the surface normals data is decoded within HEVC color component data.
 14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the metadata comprises HEVC video usability information (VUI) metadata.
 15. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the one or more processors further to extract surface normals from a depth map for approximations.
 16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein performing the approximations comprises determining a differentiation vector between two horizontal pixels and vertical pixels on a surface, calculating a Ground Sample Distance (GSD) of a pixel and approximating a horizontal distance between two neighboring pixels as the GSD.
 17. A method to facilitate processing video bit stream data, comprising: receiving the video bit stream data; and encoding surface normals data with point cloud geometry data for reconstruction of objects within the video bit stream data based on the surface normals data, wherein the surface normals data is encoded within the point cloud geometry data via one or more color components of color component data and metadata is encoded to indicate that the color component data includes surface normals data.
 18. The method of claim 17, wherein encoding the surface normals data with the point cloud geometry data comprises encoding a vector perpendicular to each point on a surface of an object to provide directions associated with the object.
 19. The method of claim 18, wherein encoding the surface normals data further comprises encoding the surface normals data via a high level syntax to indicate that surface normals data is included within the video bit stream.
 20. The method of claim 18, wherein encoding the surface normals data further comprises encoding the surface normals data within color component data.
 21. The method of claim 20, wherein encoding the surface normals data further comprises encoding metadata to indicate that the HEVC color component data includes surface normals data.
 22. At least one non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon, which when executed by one or more processors, cause the processors to: receive surface normals data encoded within point cloud geometry data included in the video bit stream data; and reconstruct objects within the video bit stream data based on the surface normals data, wherein the surface normals data is encoded within the point cloud geometry data via one or more color components of color component data and metadata is encoded to indicate that the color component data includes surface normals data.
 23. The computer readable medium of claim 22, reconstructing the objects within the video bit stream data based on the surface normals comprises rendering the object using the directions provided with the vector for each point on the surface of the object.
 24. The computer readable medium of claim 22, having instructions stored thereon, which when executed by one or more processors, further cause the processors to decode the surface normals data via a high level syntax to indicate that surface normals data is included within the video bit stream.
 25. The computer readable medium of claim 24, wherein decoding the surface normals data further comprises decoding the surface normals data from color component data included in the video bit stream.
 26. An apparatus to facilitate light estimation, comprising: one or more processors to estimate relative location and intensity of light sources in a 360° six degrees of freedom (6 DoF) scene, including, generating point clouds from the 6 DoF scene, computing surface normals, determining light intensity peaks for each object in the 6 DoF scene and performing light estimations for each object based on the light intensity peaks; and a memory communicatively coupled to the one or more processors.
 27. (canceled)
 28. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the one or more processors further to map light estimations to the 6 DoF scene. 